Debate x NZIFF #1: It Was Just an Accident

DEBATE X NZIFF | REVIEW | WEB EXCLUSIVE

Written by Daniel Tang (he/him) | @daniel941 on Letterboxd | Contributing Writer

Opening Whānau Mārama 2025, It Was Just an Accident reflects an ongoing trend in prestigious, yet accessible global cinema, expertly weaving thriller, drama, and comedy around a socioculturally interesting premise and a bundle of pressing social commentary. In this first instance, Iranian dissident Jafar Panahi's latest thriller is set in his homeland and is defined by an intentionally Iranian experience of trauma. Traumatic events, including a dead dog (warning to my fellow dog lovers) in the film’s cold open, and trauma responses – of fear, anger, and repression, but also of community and revenge. Systemic trauma from a repressive regime where uninhibited state interrogators use any means necessary to abuse information out of suspected dissidents. Interpersonal trauma between an interrogator and an unlikely group of strangers-turned-peers, blending the target of the relationship causing despair between the interrogator-prisoner, state-interrogator, and state-prisoner. Personal trauma, in enraged outbursts and haphazard kidnappings taken too far, but also in injured organs and violated bodies from state torture. The film understands that with the right pacing and narrative, a series of plot twists bearing shock value become a cohesive storyline of vengeance and the inherent uncertainty in trusting a stranger, let alone your state-sanctioned oppressor. A country's worth of individuals have bodies that keep the score of top-down state violence, international colonial oppression, and a well-crafted barrage of conflicting personalities.

Equally, the latest Cannes Palme d’Or winner is a dramedy about found family and forgiveness. Across the 2000-strong opening night audience at The Civic, the inflated second act read as a breakfast club-like road trip of colourful characters, peppered with comedic gags and a regime's worth of trauma bonding. From sparse chuckles to loud cackles, the comedic potential of this film is delightful while remaining thoughtful. Even in these moments of levity, Iranian culture places itself at the forefront – customary practices from celebrating marriage and childbirth to the everyday moments of strangers coming together. Like his other films, Panahi displays an incredible love for the community of Iran while he criticises its misgovernance. On the film’s darker edge, levity crashes to a literally blood-shot confrontation by the final act, with intense performances by lead actors Vahid Mobasseri and Mariam Afshari illuminated at night by strikingly red vehicle lights. Given that Panahi filmed this precariously without the Iranian government’s permission, the cinematography far exceeded expectations and the occasional visual and scripting falters were more than forgivable. Indeed, this film, as introduced by NZIFF creative director Paolo Bertolin, gently advocates for considered forgiveness. It considers the risk in trusting mutual forgiveness for mutual wrongdoing – for running over a dog, for being unjustifiably detained and tortured, and for torturing your torturer as vengeance. Especially so when ‘it was just an accident’.

Overall, Panahi displays impressive creativity in presenting a collective nation reckoning with what fighting for justice and liberation means through a dramedy thriller. Fighting towards revolutionary change, it considers forgiveness of trauma as a liberating step of personal and systemic progress riskily built on mutual trust. It Was Just an Accident asks, with no true answer given its open ending, what organised progress looks like and upon what values. What is done, is done, but what now?