Is it ever right to enact revenge? This is the main question that Vahid (Vahid Mobasseri) wrestles with in It Was Just an Accident, Jafar Panahi’s Palme d’Or-winning thriller that works as a rebuke to the oppressive Iranian regime. Vahid happens upon the chance to enact revenge on the political agent who tortured him while in prison, but he isn’t entirely sure whether his actions are justified, so he essentially spends the film taking a straw poll from the various others who were tormented by the same man.
Vahid is fairly certain of the man’s identity, but he hesitates in enacting revenge, even though he has already kidnapped him and even dug his grave in the empty desert. If only he could receive some sign that this is indeed the man and that to kill him is justified, he could be satisfied with killing him and live the rest of his life with a clean conscience. But life is never that easy.
In Exodus 21:23 (NIV), we’re told that “if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.” Justice is meant to be proportional, even if revenge is forbidden. Christ went further, telling his followers in Matthew 5:38 (NIV), “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’ But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Within Islam, the most relevant religion for It Was Just an Accident, a transliteration of Surah Al-Ma’idah 45 from the Qur’an says: “We ordained for them in the Torah, ‘A life for a life, an eye for an eye, a nose for a nose, an ear for an ear, a tooth for a tooth—and for wounds equal retaliation.’ But whoever waives it charitably, it will be atonement for them. And those who do not judge by what Allah has revealed are ‘truly’ the wrongdoers.”
As you can see from these sacred texts, the need for justice is absolute, but revenge is forbidden. But how is a person to tell the difference between the two? Typically, the state is the arbiter of what is justice and what is revenge: trial and execution is justice, retaliatory murder is revenge. But what happens when the person you’re seeking justice against was an agent of the state, as in Vahid’s situation in It Was Just an Accident? How do you differentiate between justice and revenge in this case? Working on behalf of the state, Vahid’s torturer wreaked unimaginable pain and anguish on him and his friends. What is the proportional response? And even if such a response is morally permitted, can he live with the moral consequences?
It Was Just an Accident has no easy answers. Just probing questions and honest interrogations of life as it’s lived on the streets of Tehran. It’s gripping cinema up to its final frame, which leaves you pondering so much about not only the aftermath of the film’s narrative, but its moral implications for a nation on the brink. — Aren Bergstrom (3 Brothers Film)
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