Jafar Panahi’s ‘taut revenge thriller’ turns into frontrunner to take Cannes’ high prize

After years of imprisonment and journey bans in his native Iran, Jafar Panahi returns to Cannes with a livid however humorous revenge thriller that takes goal at oppressive regimes and will scoop the Palme d’Or.

The movie opens with an extended, unbroken, deceptively charming shot of a genial man (Ebrahim Azizi) and his comfortable, pregnant spouse driving within the countryside one night, with their playful daughter within the again seat. When the automotive breaks down, the husband persuades a mechanic to tinker with it, however then the mechanic’s rumpled colleague Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) recognises a chilling mixture of sounds: the uneven footsteps of somebody with a limp, and the squeaks of a man-made leg.

One of many themes operating by the competitors movies at this yr’s Cannes Movie Pageant is how exhausting it may be to battle your method to justice when the state is standing in your approach. In Two Prosecutors, the forms in Stalin’s USSR grinds fact to mud. In Eagles of the Republic, an Egyptian actor finds himself being directed by slimy officers, each at work and at residence. File 137 is ready in at this time’s France, however even there, a police investigation is obstructed by programs that shield some sorts of wrongdoers greater than others.

Essentially the most fast and private of those movies is It Was Simply an Accident, written and directed by Jafar Panahi. Panahi has repeatedly been imprisoned and banned from film-making in his native Iran, and has been topic to so many journey bans that he hasn’t been in Cannes since 2003 (though his movies have), so it is hardly stunning that his newest movie is so frank about life underneath an oppressive regime. What could also be extra stunning is that It Was Simply an Accident balances fury with heat, humour and sympathy for its characters, even when taking over the grimmest doable subject material.

These sounds, which have haunted Vahid’s nightmares for years, recall somebody he calls Peg Leg, a sadistic interrogator who tortured him whereas he was incarcerated on trumped-up sedition costs. On impulse, Vahid knocks the person out with a shovel, and stuffs him in a field at the back of his van. He plans to bury Peg Leg alive within the desert – and the movie, with its dusty mountain vistas, involves really feel like a traditional Western story of frontier justice.

However wait. Vahid was at all times blindfolded whereas he was in jail, and so he cannot be sure that the person he has caught is Peg Leg, in any case. He decides to drive into the town to get a second opinion from a good friend who was locked up with him, however even then, issues aren’t so easy. Earlier than lengthy, Vahid’s van is filled with former prisoners arguing over the query, together with a shrewd wedding ceremony photographer (Mariam Afshari), an indignant lady (Hadis Pakbaten) who’s getting married the following day, and a bitter man (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) who’s greater than keen to throttle Vahid’s captive, whether or not he’s Peg Leg or not.

It Was Simply an Accident is a taut and twisting revenge thriller loaded with heavyweight moral quandaries. It’s heartbreakingly specific about what the well-drawn characters have suffered, nevertheless it asks whether or not they can ever be justified in utilizing the identical strategies – abduction, torture – as their oppressors. Even when they’ll ensure that their captive is Peg Leg, have they got the proper to execute him? However, have they got a alternative? Have they gone up to now that they are going to be in additional bother in the event that they launch him than in the event that they end the job?

Panahi mixes these points with a wholesome dose of comedy. Vahid and his associates are not any bloodthirsty vigilantes, however a bickering bunch who could also be foiled of their mission by operating out of petrol: at one level, they must push the van to a storage, together with the bride-to-be in her white wedding ceremony gown. In the meantime, they are not simply trying over their shoulders for the key police, they’re being irritated by endemic, low-level corruption. One in all a number of wry examples has two safety guards producing their very own transportable card readers in order that they’ll settle for bribes from individuals who haven’t any money on them.

These farcical vignettes aren’t simply gentle aid, although. They bolster Panahi’s highly effective level that heroes and villains aren’t all monumental figures in uniform. Those that have dedicated the worst evils, those that have endured them, and those that have stood again and let these evils occur, can all be seen on any sunny metropolis road, getting on with their bizarre lives with associates and kinfolk.

Panahi places these terrifying but touchingly humane insights into a movie that’s as fast-moving and unpretentious as any crime caper. He may effectively return to Iran with Cannes’ high prize, the Palme d’Or, after the pageant finishes this weekend.