At the Cannes Film Festival, the premiere of the political thriller Jafar Panahi “Simple Accident” (Un Simple Accident) was held. The Iranian cinema, who has been haunting the authorities for many years in his native country, first presented his film at the festival personally. This is a story filled with many unexpected turns about the relationship of victims and executioners, unfolding in the desert. Kinocritic Anton Dolin talks about the new work of the famous Iranian director. The hypnotic opening – to the titer with the name – the scene of “simple chance” was shot by a single plan without malls and in natural light. Evening, a car moves along a dark road. At the wheel is a man, next to him is a woman in a hijaba, pregnant in a late period. In the back seat, the girl is waving and asks the dad to make a song in the radio tape recorder. He is distracted, and then the sound of a collision makes it clear that the car knocked the animal – as it turns out, a dog. The girl is in shock, her mother comforts her: “So Allah decided, he had his own reasons.” “Dad killed the dog, what does Allah have to do with this?” – Ta retorts reasonably. Further events seem to confirm the words of a woman. The car suddenly stops, as if at a bloom from above, the cause of the problem is unclear. An insignificant incident is starting a series of unpredictable consequences, which have both a bizarre nature and observed scenario logic. Like a snowball, they roll under the slope, gaining momentum, the tension of action grows, and the viewer exhales only on the final credits. And then not immediately, on a too piercing note this story will end. The dramatic and directorial skill of Iranian Jafar Panahi reaches a peak in his 11th full-length film, met in Cannes with a deafening ovation. In fairness, it is necessary to admit that the reason for such a stir not only in the artistic perfection of the picture. Panahi was once opened by Cannes, his “white ball” received here the “golden chamber” for the best debut. Since then, he ended up here more than once-however, after 2010 he did not come, because there was a court ban on leaving Iran (prohibitions were added to him to write scripts, shoot films and give interviews that Panahi regularly violated). “Simple accident” is the first film of the Iranian director, set after his prison and dry hunger strike; The other in the place of Panahi would be scared and fell silent, but he is not the same. And his first picture in a decade and a half, which the author-discident presented in Cannes personally. On the sidelines they are already arguing whether the director will return back to Iran and whether it can become a security letter for him to receive a reward – or, conversely, will make his stay in his homeland more dangerous. One way or another, in politically, the “simple accident” is also the most defiant, frank and deep picture of Panahi. Watching it, I involuntarily listed in my mind criminal articles that could turn out to this or that phrase said from the screen. Let Russian criminal legislation coincide with Iranian, still more than enough parallels. Starting with the “NOT FILM” illegally made in the conditions of house arrest, Panahi shot himself, turning the cinema into a tool of reflection and making permanent leitmotif creative freedom and censorship in Iran. In a new job, the director chooses a different direction. As a genre is a real thriller with an impeccable sappress, devoid of autobiographical elements and Brechtian game with the destruction of the fourth wall, characteristic of the same “this is not a film”, “taxi” or “three persons”. However, the apparent straightforwardness is only a way of story. His uncomfortable cinema language retains complexity and transparency, but the author himself seems to be tired of walking around yes, looking at himself in the mirror. “Simple chance” is not a film, but a challenge, an open confrontation with a regime. In his center, ethical dilemmas lived by Panahi himself, inevitable for citizens of the totalitarian state. Especially if they are able to think and experience remorse. The situation with a downed dog sets an action of the tone. A girl accusing her father of murder, under his arm with a toy dog - of course, is not accidental. Dogs will appear in the frame twice more, in turning points for the plot, which will have to determine the fate of the driver from the first scene. The dog, in Islam, is an unclean animal, already became a symbol of human freedom for Panahi in a “closed curtain”. In his films, with all their minimalism, there are no insignificant details at all. A decisive role can play an outwardly unremarkable artifact, supposedly random remark or – as here – sound not immediately seen by the viewer. Attention! The next part of the text will be spoilers for the film by Jafar Panahi “Simple accident.” If it is important for you not to know the details of the plot, please do not continue reading. So, the car stalled in the middle of the road. The confused head of the family asks for the help of a stranger holding a garage nearby. While he is digging in the engine, another middle -aged man freezes and stars intently at the unlucky driver. He tracks the head of the family and remembers where his house is. The next morning he lies in wait and, stunning with a few blows, drags into his van. Installation gluing: we are in the desert, a stranger, dug a grave, drags a tied victim there. The hero desperately resists and shouts: “You confused me with someone!” At the master class in Yerevan, which I had to moderate last summer, Panahi talked about a long-term unusual plan-the adaptation of Ariel Dorfman’s play about an unplanned meeting of the victim and the executioner. The shooting of “simple chance” was already in full swing, in the situation of strict secrecy, and the synopsis of the future film was encrypted in the words of the director. Wahid, who stole the hero, is not at all an evil -looking man in an absurd checkered shirt (Wahid Mobasseri). He is a former political prisoner, who survived torture in a prison, and after it – the suicide of his lover and the loss of work. Ekbal abducted by him (Ebrahim Azizi) is a high -ranking officer of special services, personally trying the captives and knocked out their testimonies. Wahid has been repulsed by the kidneys, and he walks with difficulty. He identified Ekbal by the creak of the prosthesis: he lost his leg during the war in Syria. Despite this, he has enough reasonableness to listen to the desperate cries of protest of a related victim. What if he really caught and is going to bury the innocent alive? Wahid goes on the road, about to find other surviving victims of the cripple (as they called their tormentor). The owner of the bookstore, a woman-photographer-before the reporter, now she takes off his wedding-the bride at one of these weddings, a doctor who has lost his job-each of them will find his own confirmation of the personality of a person whom none of them saw, because they were put on their eyes. Now such a bandage is on the executioner’s own eyes. Despite this, it is clear to each of the participants in the spontaneous conspiracy that it is necessary to decide as soon as to do with their hostage – and they are accepted to discuss his future fate. “Simple chance” is filled with unexpected plot turns – sometimes extremely dramatic, in other cases ridiculous or frankly absurd: for example, two characters recall how they went to the theater on Bacca. The playwright refused to admit that the long -awaited one from his play (despite the consonance) is God. In the “simple chance” the existence of the highest mind – whether it is punishing, merciful – is also called into question again and again. The only answer is the recognition of personal responsibility: to kill or spare? Even the groom expresses her opinion, who was not related to those events, but one of the former political prisoners sarcastically calls him the “silent majority”. This is almost “murder in the eastern express”, only with comic overtones. An unexpected team of the Avengers lacks neither the ability to cause pain, nor hatred, nor cruelty, nor elementary cohesion. It is also extremely difficult for them to resist sympathy for his own captive, although everyone’s life is somehow broken through his fault. Panahi is a humanist who shows any edification running from manifestos and slogans. The eternal problem of response to violence – do you become evil yourself if you fight with him by his methods? – He translates into a purely practical plane, doing without pomp and moralizing. There are no hopes for an open finale. The narrative looped in time and space (the finale leads to the same point where everything was started, exactly in a day) literally requires a specific point in the plot. Almost three decades ago, another Iranian director – Abbas Kiarasts, the mentor of Panahi – received the first and so far the only “gold palm branch” in the country’s history for the “taste of cherries”. It is intentionally or not, Panahi quotes the teacher in a “simple chance”. A fresh grave and a living man is still in it, a lonely tree as a reminder of life in a deserted desert – images inherited and rethought to them. Only the form changed: instead of speculative meditative paraition – a film about revenge. From this, of course, it does not follow that Panahi is obliged to get a long -deserved “gold palm branch” after the kiarosts. Although he already has, and the current President of the Cannes Jury Juliet Binosh herself starred in Kiarons and knows the Iranian context well. On the other hand, as a “simple accident” teaches us, today there is a sharp deficit of justice in the world. You can be content with the fact that such a film was born, and its fearless creator is free. “After the prison, I became bolder” Dissant Jafar Panahi, for the first time in fifteen years, was able to leave Iran. At a meeting with spectators in Yerevan, he told how he continued to make a movie, despite the prohibitions of the authorities “after the prison I became bold”, the director of Jafar Panahi, for the first time in fifteen years, was able to leave Iran. At a meeting with spectators in Yerevan, he told how he continued to make a movie despite the prohibitions of the authorities (Tagstotranslate) News
