An Iranian director assays revenge

   Director Jafar Panahi has paid dearly for his art. He’s been in and out of Iranian prisons, initially for "propagandizing" against an oppressive regime.

   In his new movie, It Was Just an Accident, Panahi tackles issues of guilt and responsibility while raising disturbing ethnical questions: How far should those who've been tortured in prison go to avenge themselves? If it's justice they seek, how would that look?

  That sounds heavy, and it is, but when you see It Was Just an Accident, you may be surprised that Panahi’s thriller includes moments of absurd humor. And as is the director’s practice, Panahi embeds his story in the rhythms of ordinary life. His movie can be as deceptively simple as its title.

  Where to begin? A chance incident on a lonely road brings Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) in contact with Eghbal, the man he believes tortured him in prison. Vahid recognizes the man’s walk because "Peg Leg," or "The Gimp" as the prisoners called him, had a prosthetic leg with an identifiable squeak. You could hear him approaching.

  Like other prisoners, Vahid was blindfolded during his interrogation; he never saw Eghbal's face.

  After kidnapping his purported tormentor, Vahid is about to take his revenge. He starts to bury Eghbal  alive in parched land outside Tehran. But the man’s pleading raises doubts. Is this really the sadist who ruined Vahid’s life, costing him his marriage and his job? He needs confirmation.

   Vahid's captive winds up in a trunk in Vahid’s van, and Vahid begins contacting other prisoners, hoping they'll help him make a positive identification. If he harms an innocent man will he be any different than the men who tormented him?

    Former prisoner and photographer Shiva (Maryam Afshari) is in the middle of taking wedding photos when she’s recruited by Vahid. She leads him to Hamid (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr), a hot-tempered fellow with no compunction about killing the man suspected of torturing him.

  Also on the journey are the prospective bride (Hadis Pakbaten) and the unsuspecting groom (Majid Panahi) who've been posing for Shiva's photos. Still wearing the gown she wore for pictures, the bride is eager to take revenge for having been sexually abused by Eghbal -- not to mention the nooses that were tied around her neck when she was threatened with hanging.

   Putting the suspected government official off-screen allows Panahi to shift the film's focus. He's less interested in the abuser than in the abused and how they behave when confronted with an opportunity to turn the tables.

  This unlikely group winds up traversing Tehran. At one point, Vahid's stalled van must be pushed through a busy street, an odd sight considering that the bride and groom haven't shed their formal wear.

   All of this follows a disorienting opening that sets the story's stage. A bearded man (Ebrahim Azizi) drives at night with his pregnant wife (Afsaneh Najmabadi). His young daughter (Delmaz Najafi) bounces to the beat of songs on the radio in the back seat.  

  When the driver's car hits a dog, he needs a mechanic, which brings him to the garage where Vahid works. Vahid's boss attends to the car. From the shadows, Vahid decides that the driver is the same intelligence officer he blames for ruining his life. The walk is a giveaway.

  Panahi has said that the descriptions of torture related by his characters derive from stories he heard in prison, and if anyone’s entitled to add humor to a tough movie, it’s Panahi, who displays a taste for the absurdity that confronts characters who often deal with the unexpected by acting on impulse.

 Considering his circumstances, every Panahi movie can be viewed as an act of courage. It Was Just an Accident, which won the Palm d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, qualifies as an important movie from a director whose struggles with oppression haven’t extinguished the spark that makes him human; that's the same spark that allows him to tell stories that touch our humanity as well.

 

 

  

An Iranian couple faces a tough test

In The Salesman, director Asghar Farhadi's latest, nothing is as simple as its characters wish.

Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman is an Oscar nominee for this year's best foreign-language film. If you've been following the news (and who hasn't?), you already know that Farhadi, an Iranian, would be prohibited from attending this year's ceremony if the seven-country immigration ban instituted by the Trump administration goes into effect. The ban currently is moving through the courts, but Farhadi already has said that he won't attend.

Perhaps court action will allow Farhadi and actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who also said she wouldn't be walking any red carpets, to attend Hollywood's annual ceremony.

Say this, though. When one of the world's best filmmakers can't attend Hollywood's biggest ceremony, something has gone seriously wrong.

Those familiar with Farhadi's work (Fireworks Wednesday, About Elly, The Past and the Oscar-winning A Separation), already know that Farhadi is a deeply humanistic director who deals with the personal lives of his protagonists as influenced and sometimes constrained by Iranian cultural imperatives.

Although set mostly in Iran, the characters in Farhadi's films never seem totally unfamiliar.

As if to underscore that point, The Salesman has an American play at its core. An Iranian actor couple (Alidoosti's Rana and Shahab Hosseini's Emad) are staging a version of the Arthur Miller classic, Death of a Salesman. The issues in Miller's play and the issues faced by the characters are meant to mingle in illustrative ways.

The movie begins when the apartment building where Rana and Emad live begins to collapse as a result of nearby construction. The couple must find new digs. Both are in the process of rehearsing Death of a Salesman when one of their colleagues tells them that he knows of a vacancy where they can take up temporary residence.

The former tenant of this new apartment may have been a prostitute, but Rana and Emad know nothing about the previous occupant, except that she's supposed to turn up at any moment to pick up the belongings she has left behind.

A pivotal plot point occurs when a stranger shows up at the apartment. Rana, who's taking a shower, forgets to lock the door, and is assaulted by this stranger. She winds up in the hospital.

This incident becomes the motor that drives the rest of the story. Rana falls into a depression, and Emad feels that his manhood has been challenged. He becomes obsessed with avenging what he regards as an affront to his honor.

Always a nuanced director, Farhadi brings the drama to an intense ethical confrontation that plays out in thought-provoking ways.

Farhadi is too good a director to draw clear-cut moral lines: good, bad, etc. The beautiful Rana is easily damaged. The robust Emad has strong creative impulses, so we're a little surprised to learn that culturally reinforced machismo so dominates his attention. Even the perpetrator of the attack on Rana -- vaguely defined to begin with -- evokes some pathos.

I don't think the movie reaches the level of complexity Farhadi achieved in A Separation, and the connection between Miller's play and the couple's reality makes The Salesman feel less organic that most of Farhadi's previous work. But that shouldn't stop you from seeing a movie about characters who must deal with one another, with their social environment, and, perhaps most importantly, with their flawed but recognizable humanity.

As is the case with many fine movies, you carry these characters forward after the movie's conclusion, knowing that they have been transformed in ways that will echo profoundly in the rest of their lives.

And just to put a cap on this review, one more observation. I would hate to see a time when a director such as Farhadi can't or won't visit American film festivals or accept an American award in person. The shame would be totally on us.