By John Corrado

In his latest film, the Palme d’Or winner It Was Just an Accident, formerly imprisoned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi crafts another complex and involving portrait of modern day Iran.

The film follows a group of people who find themselves at the centre of a moral dilemma, when a worker named Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) encounters Eghbal (Ebrahim Azizi), a man that he believes is the same guard who tortured him while in prison. The film opens on Eghbal, a well-off family man, driving home with his wife (Afssaneh Najmabadi) and daughter (Delmaz Najafi), when car troubles send him into the warehouse where Vahid works.

Noticing that Eghbal has the same distinctive limp as the prison guard that he named Pegleg, who all but destroyed his life, Vahid kidnaps him. But Eghbal insists it is a case of mistaken identity. This doubt, and the moral weight of exacting revenge without being sure, causes Vahid to draw in a cast of characters – a bride (Hadis Pakbaten), her groom (Majid Panahi), their wedding photographer (Mariam Afshari), and loose cannon friend (Mohamad Ali Elyasmehr) – who can help identify him. They all have their own reasons for wanting to get revenge against the guard.

Through a compellingly written story about the moral implications of seeking revenge against your captors, Panahi explores the complexities and ironies of life under an oppressive regime that stifles freedom of expression. While this is Panahi’s first purely dramatic work in quite some time, we can almost sense the filmmaker working through complex feelings regarding his own imprisonment through his onscreen counterparts.

At one point, the characters reference Waiting for Godot, and there is a stage-like quality to the film, with its cast of highly verbal characters who debate and argue amongst themselves. Does revenge solve anything, and is violence the answer? Panahi lets his characters grapple with these questions and verbalize them, as if he himself is also working through them.

Furthermore, Panahi finds creative ways to shoot on the fly within his country under the nose of authorities, allowing any limitations to feel both intentional and cinematic. It’s even more impressive, then, that he is able to so seamlessly weave in elements of thriller and dark comedy of errors, with the chilling final moments showing him to be a master of slow-boiling, cinematic suspense.

Film Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)

The 50th anniversary edition of Toronto International Film Festival runs from September 4th to 14th, more information on tickets and showtimes can be found right here.