It was just a casual review – Jaafar Panahi takes us on a nightmarish journey into the land of bribery and brutality | film

CAvar Panahi is a veteran Iranian author and democracy activist who continues to face arrest and imprisonment, endure filmmaking bans, defy the law, and find loopholes through which his films can be produced and shown abroad. The Iranian authorities, keenly and hypocritically aware of the global scrutiny and soft power status they have yet to gain from Eminence Panahi, seem to be (almost) tolerating this.

And now Panahi comes to Cannes with what may be his most emotionally explicit film yet: a film about state violence and retaliation, and about the pain of tyranny that coexists with the supposed normality of everyday life. There are gruesome stabs of satire, black comedy and horror farce, and the film almost feels like an Iranian dissident’s homage to Weekend at Bernie’s or even Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry.

A man (Ibrahim Azizi) is driving at night with his pregnant wife and young daughter in the car and experiences the time-honored thrill of bumping into something in the dark: a dog. This minor accident causes his car to break down just five minutes after it gets back on the road, and he finds himself randomly stopping in the garage of Waheed (Waheed Mubasiri), nicknamed “Jughead” because of his habit of holding his aching kidneys with one hand, his arm like a jug handle.

The driver also has a disability, with a limp, and Waheed feels astonished, frightened, and angry when he realizes that he knows this man; This leads to a strange chain of events that unites a disparate group of Wahid’s acquaintances who have all suffered at the hands of the state. They include bookseller Salar, wedding photographer Shiva (Maryam Afshari), the couple whose wedding photos she is taking, bride Julie (Hadis Pakpaten), groom Ali (Majid Panahi), and local daredevil Hamid (Mohammad Ali Eliyasmehr).

A strange, almost dream-like sequence takes us to various locations, including a remote desert with a tree that Hamid says looks like the set of “Waiting for Godot.” The twists and turns in the plot are astonishing, almost unreal; Can it be true that ordinary people like this can support violence? But if that seems unbelievable, it’s probably because we don’t understand the violence they actually experienced. The narrative jolts us and distracts us like Waheed and his contemporaries in the back of his truck; So do the shifts in tone from tragedy to comedy and back. But these storytelling tricks never get us to the shark-jumping point of silliness or silliness that might get us in another kind of Anglo-Hollywood film.

There is some scathing satire about Iranian officials’ addiction to bribes. A nurse at the hospital asks Wahid if he knows how to give a “gift” or just cause a scandal – and wants a box of pastries to accompany the money. Two shifty and shifty security guards demand a “gift” in exchange for not making a fuss about suspicious behavior in the truck, and the lack of cash doesn’t allow Lonely to get out; These uniformed men produce with a broad smile the debit card reader. They take bribes in the form of contactless payments.

Joe Orton might have enjoyed this harsh and satirical film, especially the group scenes in which Julie is forced to participate in the mayhem while wearing her wedding dress. It’s another hugely impressive serious comedy from one of world cinema’s most distinguished and courageous figures.