In acclaimed Iranian writer-director Jafar Panahi’s latest mystery thriller, “It Was Just an Accident,” a man with a prosthetic leg breaks down on a roadside after accidentally running over an animal. As it happens, there is a garage nearby. Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri), an auto mechanic who works there, hears the constant squeak of the prosthetic leg and recognises the sound from his time incarcerated and tortured in prison. Convinced he has encountered “peg-leg”—the pejorative nickname given to his primary tormentor—Vahid resolves to abduct the man the following day. 

Panahi is no stranger to prison. His unflinching opposition to Iran’s government, expressed through his films, has led to multiple arrests and interrogations. Two such experiences form the genesis of “It Was Just an Accident,” one dating back to his first imprisonment in 2003 by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence.^[1] According to the director, the interrogation methods used nearly 23 years ago informed aspects of the character portraits of the four former political prisoners we meet over the course of the film. ^[2] 

It was the seven to eight months Panahi spent in prison between 2022 and 2023, however, that truly gave him the impetus to write the film. After speaking with fellow inmates and hearing their stories, he felt a “weight of responsibility” towards them and questioned what he could do, if anything, in response.^[2] Seen in this context, it becomes clear how essential his intimate knowledge of these lives was to the film’s creation. 

Vahid, for example, later reveals that he became a political prisoner almost by accident—simply by flagging that he had not been paid his rightful wage. Shiva (Mariam Afshari), a photographer who now shoots wedding photos for friends, is another such case. The film implies that in her former life she was an investigative photojournalist, and that her work may have brought her too close to truths the government preferred to keep buried. 

Shiva appears, on the surface, to be the strongest of the group. By contrast, her bride-to-be friend Goli (Hadis Pakbaten), Vahid, and fellow ex-inmate Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr) each display sharply divergent physical manifestations of PTSD. Goli retches whenever her trauma resurfaces, while Hamid is prone to blind, bloodthirsty rage. Vahid’s decision to abduct a man based solely on the sonic trigger of a squeaking prosthetic leg needs little further explanation. 

As for the abductee himself, the central question is not whether he is or is not the villain. Instead, the film becomes an exercise in introspection. Each of the four former prisoners desires a different fate for their tormentor, prompting the narrative to ask what you would do if faced with the person responsible for your suffering. Would you pursue revenge, or choose mercy in the hope of moving on? 

Panahi offers no easy answers. Each victim of “peg-leg” is treated with profound empathy and understanding, and the director refrains from passing moral judgement on any of them. Nor should we, the viewers—especially from the comfort of our homes or cinema seats—presume to do so, as we cannot begin to imagine what they have endured. 

If we are to trust the film’s masterfully executed one-take opening—shot with exacting precision by cinematographer Amin Jafari—this moral ambiguity is foreshadowed from the outset. What begins as an uneventful car journey home, with a man, his pregnant wife and their cheerful daughter arguing to turn the music up, becomes a quiet nightmare when an animal is struck on the road. 

We never see the moment of impact. We never see the animal’s body. The camera floats deliberately, fixed on the driver as he steps out to assess the damage, keeping the violence out of frame. Seconds later, he is back in the car and driving away. Only the child—now visibly shaken—asks for the music to be turned off, while her parents quickly normalise what has happened. 

The subtext of this cold open reverberates throughout the film as Panahi presents Iran as a place where, on the surface, life continues as normal. Shops open, pharmacies operate, and people go about their routines with little emotional bandwidth to think beyond survival. Everything appears strangely “fine”— except that it is not fine for political prisoners attempting to re-enter society, with vastly different outcomes. 

Our insight into the lives of Vahid, Goli, Shiva and Hamid is similarly restrained. There are no graphic flashbacks, no visualised torture. We only see who they are over the two days we spend with them. It is a fitting narrative choice, mirroring how little we are typically shown of the real-world injustices faced by ordinary people whose only crime was living under an authoritarian—or authoritarian-adjacent—regime. 

Given the increasingly volatile global political climate of the past decade, this is hardly a regional problem. From India, where communal divisions have been steadily inflamed since 2014,^[3] to the long-standing atrocities committed against Palestinians by Israel—which have taken on a terrifying new scale since late 2023—fresh horrors appear daily in news headlines.^[4] 

The United States is not exempt. Under the second term of its 47th president, Donald J Trump, there has been a disturbing rise in arrests, detentions and abductions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Those detained are funnelled into prisons or detention camps that offer little in the way of dignity.^[5] Civilians are shot dead in public spaces, often with perpetrators shielded from accountability.^[6] 

“It Was Just an Accident” is a sobering reminder of this disconnect—a stark, unflinching look at the gap between what we see and what remains deliberately hidden in systems that can destroy lives for something as simple as demanding fair pay. This urgency underpins a masterfully constructed mystery thriller that grips from its opening moments and refuses to let go until its chilling final scene. Highly recommended.

References: 

1. Saunders, D. (2010). My Interview with Jafar Panahi. [online] Doug Saunders: Author of Arrival City | Journalist | Columnist [Archived by the Wayback Machine in 2015]. Available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20151109044032/http://dougsaunders.tumblr.com/post/624553436/jafar-panahi-iranian-director-interview [Accessed 15 Jan. 2026]. 
2. Romney, J. (2025). Enemy of the state: Jafar Panahi on It Was Just an Accident. [online] BFI. Available at: https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/interviews/enemy-state-jafar-panahi-it-was-just-accident [Accessed 7 Jan. 2026].
3. Gettleman, J., Schultz, K., Raj, S. and Kumar, H. (2019). Under Modi, a Hindu Nationalist Surge Has Further Divided India. The New York Times. [online] 11 Apr. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/world/asia/modi-india-elections.html [Accessed 26 Jan. 2026].
4. Cordall, S.S. (2025). Dehumanisation: How Israel is able to commit its genocide in Gaza. [online] Al Jazeera. Available at: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/17/dehumanisation-how-israel-is-able-to-commit-its-genocide-in-gaza [Accessed 2 Jan. 2026]. 
5. Walsh, J. (2025). The Abominable Sadism of ‘Alligator Auschwitz’. [online] The Nation. Available at: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/sadism-alligator-auschwitz/ [Accessed 20 Jan. 2026]. 
6. Bump, P. (2026). The real reason Trump and MAGA are so quick to blame Minneapolis shooting victims. [online] MS NOW. Available at: https://www.ms.now/opinion/minneapolis-shooting-alex-pretti-renee-good-border-patrol-ice-trump [Accessed 6 Feb. 2026].