CAUTION: Rated NC-45 for scenes of smoking.

Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover:

It’s that time again! Since 1992 my hometown of Indianapolis has presented the Heartland International Film Festival, a multi-day, multi-theater celebration of cinema held every October. Local moviegoers have the opportunity to see over a hundred new works in the realms of documentaries, narrative features, shorts, and animation made across multiple continents from myriad points of the human experience. Some participants stop in Indy on their grand tour of Hollywood’s festival circuit; some are local productions on shoestring budgets; and a wide spectrum of claims are staked in the innumerable niches between, projects with well-known actors screening alongside indies with enormous hearts.

This’ll be my third year diving in and seeing more than just a single entrant. Heartland’s 34th edition runs October 9-19, for which I’ve made plans to catch at least six films in all (Lord willing) — maybe more if time permits…

Our next film is Heartland’s sold-out “International Centerpiece Screening” of It Was Just an Accident, which has been building buzz online among pro critics in the days leading up to its limited release in the largest U.S. markets this week. It’s rare for a small foreign film to open in Indy the same weekend as it does in NYC and L.A., so it’s nice that Heartland provides such occasions for us to feel like we count as a Major City by Hollywood distribution definitions.

The latest from writer/director/producer Jafar Panahi isn’t the first time he’s shot a film in his native Iran entirely without the government’s permission. The same held true for previous films such as This Is Not a Film and No Bears, not to mention some of his earlier ones that were made “legally” only to be banned later. A suspended prison already hangs over his head, but he still has plenty more to say through his art.

Full disclosure: after seeing Accident but before sitting down to collect my own thoughts, I read Vulture.com’s new interview with him, which contained a wealth of fascinating information. Anything in this entry that resembles Fun Trivia comes from their article.

Also full disclosure: after reading the description and seeing other films by Panahi’s contemporaries such as Asgahr Farhadi’s A Separation and last year’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig (whose director Mohammad Rasoulof had to flee the country), I expected grimness, screaming matches, possibly grueling flashbacks, and terrifying attacks from whatever Iran’s equivalent of jackbooted federal thugs are called. Eventually grimness and screaming show up, but what I did not expect were the long stretches of black comedy, crafted with an honest eye toward what it actually looks like when good, innocent people decide to play vigilante without enough experience dwelling in moral grey areas.

Accident mostly follows along with an auto mechanic named Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri, also in No Bears) who was once unjustly imprisoned years ago and to this day has chronic kidney problems and painful memories. One evening a fellow mechanic brings a family of three into the shop after an incident has disabled their car. From upstairs Vahid can hear the voice of the father (Ebrahim Azizi), which might seem a little familiar…but what really catches his ear is the man’s gait — the alternating thump-drag shuffle of one good leg and one prosthetic. To Vahid’s horrified recollection it’s an exact match for the interrogator who worked him over in prison and sounded exactly like that when he walked. He realizes this customer might be the torturer he knew as Eghbal a.k.a. “Peg Leg”, among other nicknames. This might well be divine providence bringing the monster in range so he can mete out justice and/or vengeance.

At least…it might be Eghbal. Vahid was blindfolded during every encounter and never actually laid eyes on his oppressor. Vahid decides to kidnap him and strike down upon him with great vengeance and furious anger anyway, in the form of a live burial in the middle of the desert…until the guy desperately offers up some potential mistaken-identity evidence for a smidgen of reasonable doubt. Vahid is tempted to keep shoveling, but isn’t beyond reason yet. So in the interest of fairness, and maybe to procrastinate a possible crossover to the Dark Side, he ventures forth in search of corroborating witnesses. As it happens, he knows quite a few people — or knows people who know other people — who were victims of the same minion and could back him up and maybe even join him in exacting some wrath.

Vahid’s journey becomes one long comedy of errors as he ends up recruiting an entire party tagging along on his quest — a photographer named Shiva (Mariam Afshari), who tries to be a voice of reason; a bride-to-be named Goli (Hadis Pakbaten) who’s in the middle of her interminable wedding-photo shoot (yet another tradition Iran and America share!); Goli’s groom Ali (Majid Panahi, the director’s nephew and a crew member on This Is Not a Film), who wasn’t a victim and is just being supportive; and Shiva’s ex Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr), whose hulking stature and short-fuse temper would make him Most Likely to Shoot Eghbal in the Face RIGHT NOW if any of them were allowed to have guns.

Each survivor of Eghbal’s dungeon takes turns trying to identify him in their lineup-of-one…except they were all likewise blindfolded during those same worst moments of their entire lives, so none of them are eyewitnesses. One among them submits a unique method to nail the perp, which might or might not be true. The debate continues as the day turns to night, their debates go ’round and ’round, and their captive bodily functions continue as normal with unpleasant consequences. Then there’s the matter of how to deal with the guy’s pregnant wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi) and cute little daughter (Delmaz Najafi, preciously precocious). What’s an aggrieved posse to do?

So these aren’t the trained freedom fighters we’re used to seeing in our Oscar-nominated rebukes of totalitarian tyrants. Everyone wants closure on their nightmares but no one’s willing to push through their doubts, step forward, and just plain get even with him. For every smart move they make two more dumb ones. Goli and Ali remain in their bridal gown and tuxedo for the entire experience, incurring no small amount of damage. Their most hilarious obstacle is a security guard who carries a card reader around for anyone who doesn’t have cash on hand to bribe him. (Sidebar question: is Panahi having fun with the subtitles, too? Is Hamid really shouting things like “Good grief!” and “Jeepers!” in Farsi?)

And so it goes until we stop laughing and hold our breath at the climax, one of a few key scenes shot as long single takes — the necessary showdown in which any remaining secrets are revealed and those who took firm moral stances put them to the test, lit entirely as a ceaseless red rage.

Panahi has mentioned the 1990 play Death and the Maiden as an influence on Accident (I’ve seen the harrowing 1994 movie adaptation with Ben Kingsley and Sigourney Weaver), but where that one was relentlessly nerve-shredding, Accident achieves more nuanced conversations. He balances the absurdity of these amateurs’ self-created situation with well-placed, jarring pivots into the very real tension borne of the psychological scars that may never heal even if their road-trip Waiting for Godot revue leads to Godot himself descending from on high and declaring it perfectly okay to murder the guy.

But it’s telling that at no point does anyone vocalize the notion of “What if all we’ve done is kidnapped and harmed an innocent man?” Deep down they’re 96% certain he’s Peg Leg and are just grasping for something to justify ignoring the 4% margin of error that represents the difference between justice/revenge and senseless violence, between catharsis and mob mentality. Can they go all the way, and in so doing become no better than their enemies? In a sense the party of It Was Just an Accident isn’t always searching for truth and justice so much as it’s an existential longing for someone — anyone — to tell them it’s okay to move forward, if not necessarily how.

…

Meanwhile in the customary MCC film breakdowns:

Hey, look, it’s that one actor!: Other than those named above, the cast are largely amateurs and non-actors. This isn’t the sort of film where we recognize former guest stars from Perry Mason or The Twilight Zone.

How about those end credits? No, there’s no scene after the It Was Just an Accident end credits, which are a mix of Farsi and French, but after they’re done, the final name is Panahi’s own signature.

(About those French portions, more fun trivia, again citing the Vulture article: though this was filmed in Tehran over 25 days, post-production and VFX were done in Paris. France has consequently exercised its right to name Accident its official submission for Best International Feature at the next Academy Awards in accordance with the category’s rules. This among other reasons is why in the interview Panahi suggests the Academy should allow each country’s own filmmakers choose what film would best represent them, rather than let their sometimes vindictive governments choose something more subservient to their whims.)