It Was Just an Accident (2025)

 ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

It Was Just an Accident (2025) – J. Panahi 

Jafar Panahi’s 2025 Palme d’Or winner is admittedly not an easy watch, despite its use of comedy to cut its tension. That comedy made me think of Waiting for Godot before it was inevitably mentioned by the characters themselves (it is comedy rooted in absurdity). The parallel is that these characters spend the entire movie pondering whether the one-legged man they have captured really is or is not their former torturer – but they can’t know for certain because all of them were blindfolded during their time in prison as political dissidents (or simply people who ran afoul of the State). Panahi himself has spent time in prison in Iran and has been banned from making films there, but still has found ways to complete his projects, outlaw style.  Where in the past he has criticised the government for their treatment of women and their violations of human rights more broadly, here it feels more personal – a bitter recitation of the terrible injustices inflicted on innocent civilians by their own government. The plot feels like a loose framework (they drive around Tehran in a van seeking to find others who can identify their captive) to allow the characters to speak their truths, directly to the audience. Only late in the film, in a scene shot entirely in red filtered lights, do we hear a version of the government’s response, that political opposition can’t be allowed because it undermines support for the revolution.  This seems to be the hallmark of those who know that their power is invalid, without support of the people as a whole.  Yet Panahi’s message is that, despite the injustices and horror wielded against them, protesters must maintain the moral high ground, as it is in empathy, social justice, and respect for human rights, even of those who transgress against us, where strength lies.

The Invisible Man (1933)

 

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

The Invisible Man (1933) – J. Whale

Inexplicably, I never reviewed James Whale’s classic version of the H. G. Wells’ story, even having watched it many times before (and now in 4K Ultra HD).  This is Claude Rains’ Hollywood debut: even if you don’t actually see him for most of the film, that voice is enough! We begin somewhere in the middle, after Rains as Jack Griffin has already discovered the secret of invisibility (through chemical means) and now desperately wants to find the antidote, to become visible again.  He’s holed up at a local British pub/hotel owned by Una O’Connor and Forrester Harvey (playing as broadly as they can for comic relief), becoming more and more disagreeable (under his bandages, hat, and false nose) until they call in the constable.  Meanwhile, the head of his lab Cranley (Henry Travers) and scientific colleague Kemp (William Harrigan) have figured out that Griffin is the Invisible Man and even know the unfortunate side effects of the chemical he’s used that will eventually make him go mad.  Although Cranley and his daughter, Griffin’s love interest, Flora (Gloria Stuart, later in Titanic, 1997), want to help Griffin, his rival Kemp wants to turn him over to the police.  Of course, it doesn’t end well for Griffin.  Whale pulls out all the stops with regard to the special effects and, as this is still the pre-Code era, it shouldn’t be a surprise to find out that Griffin has to spend most of his time naked – although he’s too preoccupied with finding a way back to visibility to get up to much mischief (apart from a couple of murders and some monomaniacal rambling).  Quite a few sequels followed this.

The Odyssey (2026)

☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ½

The Odyssey (2026) – C. Nolan

It seems that I only go to the cinema for “event movies” these days, since everything else seems to eventually come to the small screen (which has gotten increasingly sophisticated across my lifetime).  Somehow, I scored some $7 tickets, so Amon and I headed out to see Christopher Nolan’s latest this afternoon (though not in iMax or even 70mm).  I purposefully hadn’t read too much (except parts of one essay declaring it not true enough to Homer’s original).  Amon and I have watched a lot of the classic adventure films, so it is good to be able to say that this is a fine example of the genre.  Nolan introduces some of his typical flashback structure to the film, where we first meet Penelope (Anne Hathaway), wife of Odysseus (Matt Damon) and her son Telemachus (Tom Holland), who have been awaiting Odysseus’s return from the Trojan War for the past 20 years.  We know his exploits have been passed among the people of Ithaca in song, but no one knows if he is alive or dead, even though many of his men and even his King (Agamemnon) have long since returned home.  We soon discover that Odysseus has been stranded in a mental fog, eating lotus flowers, on an island with Calypso (Charlize Theron) recovering from his injuries for the past 7 years. We see his exploits in flashback, featuring the classic episodes involving the Trojan Horse, the Cyclops, the witch Circe (Samantha Morton), Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, and more. Nolan knows how to manage the pacing of the adventurous bits and the more talky parts of the narrative (mostly involving Robert Pattinson and other suitors for the hand of Penelope and their conflict with Telemachus and with Odysseus’s aging servant Eumaeus (John Leguizamo)) to keep things moving across nearly 3 hours. As he journeys home to Ithaca, Odysseus is occasionally visited by Athena (Zendaya) who serves as his guide and inspiration. I’m not sure having Zendaya and Lupita Nyong'o (in a bit part as Helen of Troy) in the cast is enough to make this film “woke” (although perhaps some MAGA viewers may also have concerns about Elliot Page, who has a key role); the American accents on display from Hathaway and Damon alone are enough to require suspension of disbelief that this is really ancient Greece. (and let’s leave the boring-old culture wars out of this anyway). Moreover, although there is a lot of fighting, ultimately there is some anti-war sentiment here too, as we learn of Odysseus’s regrets at the terrible killing and raping of civilians in Troy by his own men/army. He wants to repent. (This doesn’t stop him from becoming a one-man army late in the film though). As a spectacle, the film is loud and action-packed although pretty sombre through-and-through.  I only occasionally thought of Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Ray Harryhausen’s special effects but that was for kids and this is for adults (with similarly wondrous cinematography but less of a sense of wonder).  Perhaps this would be diminished on the small screen and perhaps I have over-rated it due to the big-screen. Nevertheless, for an escapist day out, it ruled.