iven the option, Panahi might prefer to move onto fresh material -- but as man and artist, he seems to be surviving as well as could be hoped.

Panahi's status as a martyr for his art could have gulled him into loftiness and pride; and yet, by some miracle, Taxi stays as modest as his smile, the point being not to recruit us to his cause but to put us on the side of his compatriots.

Taxi is easily the director's most accessible work to date.

A cry against governmental indifference and a cruel restriction from a chosen means of expression, Taxi is a unique work of art that defies boundaries and convention.