Jafar Panahi’s Scenes From a Crime
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Books & the Arts
/ February 18, 2026
The Crime Scene
Jafar Panahi’s dissident films.
Jafar Panahi’s Scenes From a Crime
His films show how a regime’s wrongdoing can upend one’s sense of self and transform the very rhythm of daily life.
Alex Kong
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Jafar Panahi, 2010.
(Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
The photographs of Eugène Atget document the ghostly residues of a Paris on the verge of disappearance. Typically devoid of people or other signs of life, Atget’s images capture desolate and seemingly unremarkable urban locations—an empty street, an enigmatic building—that seem pregnant with some kind of meaning, but obstinately refuse to disclose it. These were locations that would soon be wiped out by the urban modernization of the city initiated by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, which replaced sections of old Paris with wide boulevards. Walter Benjamin remarked that Atget photographed these streets “like scenes of crime. The scene of a crime, too, is deserted; it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence.” Evidence of what? Atget’s photography insistently courts this question, even as it declines to answer.
In Jafar Panahi’s most recent film, It Was Just an Accident, a city’s seemingly banal locales are similarly reframed as sites of some terribly important yet elusive meaning. But here, what invests the quotidian with portending significance is sound. On the outskirts of Tehran, a car mechanic opens up his garage late at night for a stranded traveler whose car has broken down. As the traveler walks around, the squeak of his prosthetic leg becomes audible. The mechanic looks shaken, and the next day, he follows the man into the city, where he kidnaps him and drives him out to a remote stretch of desert. As the mechanic, Vahid, starts digging a grave, he accuses the man of torturing him when he was imprisoned for his labor activism years ago, leaving him with a permanent limp. And the proof of his identity, Vahid claims, is the unmistakable sound of the squeaking prosthetic limb that belonged to the torturer, whom the prisoners called Peg Leg.
Begging for his life as Vahid piles dirt on top of him, the man denies being Peg Leg, and Vahid decides that he can’t go through with it without being sure. So he locks the man in a box in the trunk of his van and drives into Tehran in search of other prisoners who might be able to verify the man’s identity. As the film embarks on this tour of the city, Tehran’s banal settings take on an ominous air. In the same manner as Atget’s photographs, the street corners and parking lots hold their tongue as Vahid sets off on a kind of detective …
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Current Issue
Books & the Arts
/ February 18, 2026
The Crime Scene
Jafar Panahi’s dissident films.
Jafar Panahi’s Scenes From a Crime
His films show how a regime’s wrongdoing can upend one’s sense of self and transform the very rhythm of daily life.
Alex Kong
Share
Copy Link
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Edit
Ad Policy
Jafar Panahi, 2010.
(Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
The photographs of Eugène Atget document the ghostly residues of a Paris on the verge of disappearance. Typically devoid of people or other signs of life, Atget’s images capture desolate and seemingly unremarkable urban locations—an empty street, an enigmatic building—that seem pregnant with some kind of meaning, but obstinately refuse to disclose it. These were locations that would soon be wiped out by the urban modernization of the city initiated by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, which replaced sections of old Paris with wide boulevards. Walter Benjamin remarked that Atget photographed these streets “like scenes of crime. The scene of a crime, too, is deserted; it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence.” Evidence of what? Atget’s photography insistently courts this question, even as it declines to answer.
In Jafar Panahi’s most recent film, It Was Just an Accident, a city’s seemingly banal locales are similarly reframed as sites of some terribly important yet elusive meaning. But here, what invests the quotidian with portending significance is sound. On the outskirts of Tehran, a car mechanic opens up his garage late at night for a stranded traveler whose car has broken down. As the traveler walks around, the squeak of his prosthetic leg becomes audible. The mechanic looks shaken, and the next day, he follows the man into the city, where he kidnaps him and drives him out to a remote stretch of desert. As the mechanic, Vahid, starts digging a grave, he accuses the man of torturing him when he was imprisoned for his labor activism years ago, leaving him with a permanent limp. And the proof of his identity, Vahid claims, is the unmistakable sound of the squeaking prosthetic limb that belonged to the torturer, whom the prisoners called Peg Leg.
Begging for his life as Vahid piles dirt on top of him, the man denies being Peg Leg, and Vahid decides that he can’t go through with it without being sure. So he locks the man in a box in the trunk of his van and drives into Tehran in search of other prisoners who might be able to verify the man’s identity. As the film embarks on this tour of the city, Tehran’s banal settings take on an ominous air. In the same manner as Atget’s photographs, the street corners and parking lots hold their tongue as Vahid sets off on a kind of detective …
Jafar Panahi’s Scenes From a Crime
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Jafar Panahi’s Scenes From a Crime
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Current Issue
Books & the Arts
/ February 18, 2026
The Crime Scene
Jafar Panahi’s dissident films.
Jafar Panahi’s Scenes From a Crime
His films show how a regime’s wrongdoing can upend one’s sense of self and transform the very rhythm of daily life.
Alex Kong
Share
Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky Pocket
Email
Edit
Ad Policy
Jafar Panahi, 2010.
(Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)
The photographs of Eugène Atget document the ghostly residues of a Paris on the verge of disappearance. Typically devoid of people or other signs of life, Atget’s images capture desolate and seemingly unremarkable urban locations—an empty street, an enigmatic building—that seem pregnant with some kind of meaning, but obstinately refuse to disclose it. These were locations that would soon be wiped out by the urban modernization of the city initiated by Georges-Eugène Haussmann, which replaced sections of old Paris with wide boulevards. Walter Benjamin remarked that Atget photographed these streets “like scenes of crime. The scene of a crime, too, is deserted; it is photographed for the purpose of establishing evidence.” Evidence of what? Atget’s photography insistently courts this question, even as it declines to answer.
In Jafar Panahi’s most recent film, It Was Just an Accident, a city’s seemingly banal locales are similarly reframed as sites of some terribly important yet elusive meaning. But here, what invests the quotidian with portending significance is sound. On the outskirts of Tehran, a car mechanic opens up his garage late at night for a stranded traveler whose car has broken down. As the traveler walks around, the squeak of his prosthetic leg becomes audible. The mechanic looks shaken, and the next day, he follows the man into the city, where he kidnaps him and drives him out to a remote stretch of desert. As the mechanic, Vahid, starts digging a grave, he accuses the man of torturing him when he was imprisoned for his labor activism years ago, leaving him with a permanent limp. And the proof of his identity, Vahid claims, is the unmistakable sound of the squeaking prosthetic limb that belonged to the torturer, whom the prisoners called Peg Leg.
Begging for his life as Vahid piles dirt on top of him, the man denies being Peg Leg, and Vahid decides that he can’t go through with it without being sure. So he locks the man in a box in the trunk of his van and drives into Tehran in search of other prisoners who might be able to verify the man’s identity. As the film embarks on this tour of the city, Tehran’s banal settings take on an ominous air. In the same manner as Atget’s photographs, the street corners and parking lots hold their tongue as Vahid sets off on a kind of detective …
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