Exhilarating, exuberant and drolly funny.

The rare Iranian film that is not only thoughtful and thought-provoking but also a lot of fun.

Its ruminations on secular Iranian nationalism are effectively couched within the characters, and the film, which won the Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear but is banned in Iran, has a refreshing slyness to it, as if it's getting away with something too.

It introduces us to a handful of endearing characters, in the process humanizing a nation that is only presented to the U.S. as a boogeyman threatening -- what’s the popular term? -- "our American way of life."