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‘It Was Just an Accident’ Review: Iranian Director Jafar Panahi’s Done Being Discreet, Launching an Open Warning to His Oppressors
After being imprisoned multiple times, Jafar Panahi emerges anything but chastened in 'It Was Just an Accident,' serving up a powerful moral dilemma.
Strange as it may sound (for a slow-burn scripted drama with endless driving scenes and a detour through the maternity ward), their mordantly funny task crosses the absurdism of Samuel Beckett with one of Tarantino’s more furious revenge pictures. It’s telling that Panahi is no longer obliquely challenging specific policies (the way “The Circle” depicted gender inequality and “This Is Not a Film” pushed back on limits to personal expression) but openly threatening his overlords with payback. Except for Azizi, who plays Eghbal, his performers are all nonprofessionals, and much of the low-budget production is spent not on traditional sets, but within a few meters of Vahid’s white van — or else in the back, where Shiva has brought along the bride (Hadis Pakbaten) and groom (the director’s nephew, Majid Panahi) from a recent photo shoot.
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