January 31, 2026
One night, a man with a prosthetic leg (Ebrahim Azizi) stopped by an auto repair shop to have his car checked. A mechanic named Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) heard the clicking sound of his prosthetic leg and believed that this man was the same guy who previously tortured him in an Iranian prison. The next morning, Vahid abducted this man and took him to the desert to be buried alive. However, the man denied that he was the notorious interrogator known as Eghbal. Vahid decided to bring him back to town to confirm his identity.
Book shop owner Salar (Georges Hashemzadeh) declined to verify, and referred photographer Shiva (Mariam Afshari), who thought he was Eghbal by his smell. She was then taking prenuptial photos of couple Ali (Majid Panahi) and Goli (Hadis Pakbaten). Goli revealed that she had also been Eghbal's victim, but was likewise unsure. Shiva's ex Hamid (Mohammad Ali Elyasmehr) felt sure about this was Eghbal after touching the man's leg, and wanted to kill him at once. However, the others wanted a confession and apology from him first.
This film was written and directed by Iranian director Jafar Panahi, who reportedly made this film without permission from the Iranian government. Panahi's other open act of defiance to authority was the inclusion of two female characters who were not wearing the hijab, which is compulsory for women in Iran. Despite these controversies, this film competed for and actually won the Palme D'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
This film is a shoo-in to be nominated in the race for Best International Film Oscar, as the submission of France. There is also very loud buzz that this may also make it to the final 10 of the nominations list for the Best Picture Oscar. In the recently-announced Golden Globe nominations, it is vying for Best Picture Drama, Director, Screenplay as well as Foreign Language film (The languages used in the film were Persian and Azebaijani.)
The first part was not clear outright. Why was Vahid very wary of this customer, and why did he stalk him all the way to his house? As more people were involved in Vahid's darkly humorous road trip did we learn about Vahid's true personality and realize that we will need to stick it out to the very end to know the answer to the mystery of prosthetic guy's true identity. Panahi's enigmatic ending involved a very subtle sound effect to create tension. Listen!
The title was mentioned twice in the opening sequence, where prosthetic guy was driving home with his pregnant wife and young daughter. Their car hit a stray dog on the road and killed it. The wife calmed their daughter down by saying that this was just an accident. In the end, you would think back about this innocuous opening and try to connect this as a metaphor for the events that happened in the film. Was anything really just a simple accident? 7/10
