The movie titled It Was Just an Accident by Jafar Panahi is a morally haunting film. It places the moral decision, whether one should refrain from taking revenge on tormentors, into an indeterminate position by staging it within an authoritarian political context. An accident is a mystery: a mystery in which the tormented encounters the tormentor. The victims are ordinary, powerless people who value justice and nonviolence. They are suddenly awakened to their painful prison memories, accidentally, to the sound of the tormentor’s gait. The officer, whose car had struck a dog, comes to repair it and seeks a toolbox from one of his victims. That victim recognises the sound of his gait, which reignites anger and the thought of revenge. Panahi seems to suggest two divergent versions of reality, which may collide accidentally at any time. The officer, who at first conceals his identity, eventually reveals himself, first as the oppressor, and then, when confronted by a woman recount...