Eavesdropping At The Movies

One of Iran's most celebrated filmmakers, Jafar Panahi, has spent the last quarter of a century in conflict with the Iranian government, which objects to his films' criticisms of their actions and the wider social conditions in the country, and has both arrested him several times and banned him from making films for twenty years - which hasn't stopped him. His latest, It Was Just an Accident, won the 2025 Palme d'Or, and tells the story of former political prisoners who capture a man they suspect was their torturer. It's a brilliant thriller which, despite the gravity and darkness of its subject matter, is energetic and entertaining. It effortlessly raises both moral and practical questions - What's the right thing to do with their captive? Have they become the torturers? If they let him live, won't he just come after them again? - without entering morality play territory, neither pretending to have the answers nor admonishing its characters for their choices and emotional responses. It's a vivid expression