‘It Was Just an Accident’ (2025) Movie Review - Jafar Panahi and the Art of Quiet Terror

Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident opens with a long, unbroken scene of a family driving at night. There is something unsettling about this moment, though it is difficult to put your finger on it. A few minutes later, the car crashes into a dog, killing it. Rashid (Ebrahim Azizi) steps out of the vehicle, inspects the scene, and resumes driving. His daughter (Delnaz Najafi), cheerful until then, becomes sad and blames her father for taking an innocent life. Rashid's wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi), however, doesn't blame him. She tells her daughter that the road is dark and unlit, and that accidents like these are nothing out of the ordinary.

What Panahi seeks to convey through this opening becomes clearer as you go deeper into the story. But before that, he grounds this vague anxiety in a terrific mystery. The source of that mystery is Rashid—or, more precisely, the question of his true identity. According to Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), Rashid is actually Eghbal, the man who, in the Iranian prison, tortured people like Vahid — people who dared to speak against the regime. The evidence? A prosthetic leg, the sound of which Vahid has never forgotten and which continues to haunt him.

Rashid, however, defends himself by claiming that his wounds are new, that he lost his leg only recently. Though Vahid remains unconvinced, Rashid's words sow the seeds of doubt in both his and the audience's minds. Vahid binds and gags his supposed former tormentor and takes him to other victims to verify his identity. This transforms It Was Just an Accident from a straightforward drama into something that is also a road movie and, at times, even a comedy. When a car sputters to a halt early on, the moment feels like a character's comeuppance. Later, when another vehicle breaks down, Panahi offers a visual gag as people push the van down the road with childlike energy.

The reactions of the former political prisoners whom Vahid visits are particularly telling. For a moment, forget whether Rashid is truly Eghbal or an innocent man falsely accused of a crime. Notice how the mere mention of Eghbal's name causes people to faint, recoil in fear, or turn angry. This is Panahi's way of illustrating the emotional scars that prisoners carry long after their release—wounds that seem destined to endure indefinitely.

As the characters struggle to decide Rashid's fate, Panahi offers glimpses of everyday Iranian life, revealing its own small, grim realities. Two security guards, for instance, demand a bribe, and a hospital receptionist refuses to admit a pregnant woman without proof of identity. Yet Iran is not portrayed as uniformly bleak. A doctor immediately takes in the pregnant woman, and the so-called "kidnappers" show kindness toward Rashid's family by helping his wife and child. Panahi presents a portrait of a country in which ordinary citizens are coerced, manipulated, and compelled to serve the regime.

A road movie is, at its core, a story of transformation. By the end, characters confront their mistakes, acknowledge their failures, and emerge changed human beings. In It Was Just an Accident, a crucial confession reinforces Panahi's critique of systemic manipulation. We hear a man who initially boasts of serving the government and expecting martyrdom after death, only to later admit that he was merely following orders—doing what he was told like a machine.

What Panahi achieves with his restrained, observational style is remarkable. While many filmmakers struggle to draw audiences in with flashy camera movements, Panahi quietly and almost imperceptibly immerses us in his characters' minds. Through its breathtaking ending, It Was Just an Accident reaches a level of subjectivity so powerful that the viewer becomes acutely aware of the filmmaker's subtle control and his superb directorial skills. With nothing more than a squeaking sound, the film places us in the position of a victim. Like the man on screen, we are paralyzed.

Suddenly, It Was Just an Accident takes on the qualities of a horror film, its ambiguity sending a chill down the spine. We do not know what will happen next, and that uncertainty breeds unease—the same unease that defined the opening scenes. In this tonal sense, the film comes full circle. This is undeniably the work of a genius: a filmmaker with a complex understanding of the world and much to say about it. That Panahi manages to channel such weighty ideas through a deceptively simple yet perceptive story is no accident. A film like this, after all, could only have been made by someone like Jafar Panahi.

Final Score- [8.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
Follow @vikasonorous on Twitter
Publisher at Midgard Times