At Cannes Film Fest, Jafar Panahi’s ‘A Simple Accident’ is bold & brilliant

Cannes: The legendary Iranian auteur, Jafar Panahi, has had a rough patch that has been painfully long and dark. Yet, the man’s never-say-die attitude has been unbelievably remarkable. For years, the Iranian administration has been cruel to him, trying at every step to curb his fiercely artistic freedom, putting him in prison and later placing him under house arrest. All in an effort to silence his voice told through hauntingly beautiful and powerful images.

But an undaunted Panahi could not be defeated. He made movies after movies and they were critical of his government. Admittedly, it was veiled but could be easily guessed. The restrictions Tehran imposed on individual freedom and liberty could not stop him. He even had his work smuggled out of Iran. Once in a pen drive that was cleverly hidden inside a cake!

This time at the Cannes Film Festival, which ended the other evening, Panahi came with his ‘A Simple Accident’. He arrived without fanfare - as was his custom - but caused a bang when his movie walked away with the festival’s highest honour, Palm d'Or, on the closing night of May 24.

The jury led by the French diva, Juliette Binoche, I am told, had no hesitation in giving away the prize to Panahi. The panel also included India’s Payal Kapadia, whose 2024 competition title, ‘All We Imagine As Light’, clinched the Grand Prix, the second-highest honour at Cannes.

‘A Simple Accident’ came to Panahi’s mind while he was in jail and what emerged was an exciting revenge thriller, which did not play quite like a Hollywood crime caper - and happily so. Woven inside the plot is a moral dilemma.

The film begins its run when we see a family of three travelling home one evening. The man at the wheel, Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), with a prosthetic leg hits a dog. The car is damaged and he is forced to take it to a mechanic. The sound of the artificial limb triggers the garage owner, Vahid’s (Vahid Mobasserie), memory. Vahid stalks Eghbal, kidnaps him and takes him to a desert planning to bury him in a deep hole.

Vahid realises that the man who tortured him in jail was none other than Eghbal, but Panahi leads us into a path of dilemma. We are left to wonder whether Eghbal is actually the guy. Vahid changes his mind and the story spirals from this point. Layers of narrative add a zing to the motion picture.

Panahi is not just a great storyteller but also a helmer who has tight control over style and substance. The plot is brilliant as well as bold and encourages us to question the very concept of revenge and violence. ‘A Simple Accident’ also asks us how useful vengeance really is and what its scope is. The forever questioning mind of Panahi encourages us to put on our thinking caps.

Really a lovely work that is bound to stay with us for a long time. But I hope we will be able to watch it soon on a streaming platform.

(The writer is a senior critic and author and has been covering the Cannes Film Festival for over three decades)