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Rating: EYE FOR AN EYE, OR MAYBE NOT?
Between the temptation for revenge after an injustice suffered and the need to be something other than the logic of the regime, Panahi’s act of accusation is rendered as a road movie.
It’s a race in search of a good reason to eliminate the enemy, evil itself, a form of summary justice that the protagonists hope will be liberating. The need to confirm a guilt that authorizes them to bury the accused, but even more so to bury a painful past, and to bury it in the desert, in the void far from everyday life. Abstract, desolate landscapes, far from the cities, very different from “Taxi Teheran” of ten years ago that told us directly about daily life. Here, it’s an indirect account of painful personal memories.
It’s in this race that the film’s ironic touches about the regime emerge (perhaps not further emphasized enough), and the ways it controls people. People who place no limits on the final solution they seek. In this sense, the depiction of the protagonists' inner conflicts is perhaps more successful than the sarcastic representation of present-day Persia and of a system that cannot gag people’s consciences. Panahi himself bears witness to this, being out of place for the imagery we have of the regime, placing unveiled women at the forefront of the narrative—even as main witnesses (like a photographer) to the absurdity of the events.
And so, there’s a former executioner in the trunk, an accused man who could become a corpse but is not one yet, and whose personal drama makes us perceive him somehow as a victim himself, with the uncertainty of his fate entrusted to an impromptu on-the-road jury. As they wander, the “band” of vigilantes engage in judgments and deep moral dilemmas, right in a system where superficial exterior morality is the yardstick for granting or denying rights and social roles.
There’s also the element of repentance, that is, the possibility (not of the system itself, but of people) to rid oneself of a terribly negative role. And a geopolitical reference appears in the accused’s missing leg, a symbol of Iran’s loss of regional influence after the failed intervention in Syria.
It could have been more poetic, more light-hearted and ironic, more intimate, but Panahi stays in the middle… he seems unable—or maybe deliberately refuses—to choose a definitive direction. Still, it remains a film of great ethical rigor and great courage. Maybe a film that doesn’t grab you right away, one that needs to be digested slowly, and a Cannes prize that tastes more political than artistic, yet the dragging sound of footsteps at the end is a master stroke reminding us to keep our consciences awake…
WORTH SEEING
(Recenstalker 11/08/2025)
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