‘Universal Language’ is a visually striking oddity—maybe too odd.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
The offbeat, cross-cultural film “Universal Langauge,” the Canadian Oscar selection for International Feature, speaks of turkeys, donkeys, Iranian-Canadian family ties, and the Canadian winter. Winnipeg-born filmmaker Michael Rankin (“The Twentieth Century”), who also appears in the film as a man named Matthew, pays homage to Iranian cinema in this not-so-slightly mad, neo-neo-realist triptych/waking dream about, among other things, a pair of Iranian-Canadian children competing with a grown man in flamboyant ear muffs to free a 500 rial bill from its icy prison.
The man is Matthew (Rankin), and he is on a journey to see his mother, whose memory is fading, in Winnipeg. The children are students in a classroom we encounter in the opening scenes, where an angry teacher berates them in Farsi, orders the class into a closet, and lights a cigarette. One of the students, Omid (Sobhan Jovadi), claims to have lost his eyeglasses to a thieving wild turkey. Another was made up as Groucho Marx and claims to want to become a comedian. Another student expresses a desire to “breed donkeys.” “All of you will fail,” their teacher tells them bluntly.
Opening scenes play against a backdrop of a giant brutalist building, which we assume houses the children’s classroom. The camera of cinematographer Isabelle Stachtchenko glides soundlessly at ground level. We get a lesson in Farsi in Canadian topography. We are told that “These Eyes,” the 1969 hit song by The Guess Who, is, in fact, an Iranian composition. When we don’t hear Farsi, the language of the film is French. The two often intertwine, unlike the Iranian characters stranded in an ice-bound Canada. We meet a Farsi-speaking turkey butcher whose shop is full of fresh carcasses wrapped in see-through plastic. Living turkeys roam freely outdoors (I’m unsure of the meaning of all the turkeys). Later, the elderly butcher will prove to be an accomplished vocalist. An ambulatory Christmas tree requests a cigarette from a child. We see a lachrymologist’s “collection of tears.”
Tour guide Massoud (Pirouz Nemati) tells his customers about a plaque commemorating the life of Metis leader Louis Riel in a flagrant case of virtue signaling. A parking facility resembles a ziggurat. People go to Tim Hortons for tea instead of brand-name coffee. Turkey salesmen peddle their fare on TV.
The film’s visuals are dream-like but also frequently starved of life and light. The prominent colors are beige and the dirty white of the deep, frozen, omnipresent snow. I often felt as if I was watching a film by a young David Lynch, but Lynch was more daring and frightening than Rankin.
“Universal Language” has received a lot of praise. I admired some of the film. But being offbeat and eccentric does not automatically make you brilliant. Shot in grainy, slightly imperfect-looking Super 16, “Universal Language” features humans walking beneath enormous structures seemingly poised to crush them. The surroundings are frigid and unforgiving. Men are addressed as “agha,” meaning “mister.” By the time I heard about the Winnipeg Earmuff Authority, I was ready to bail. “Universal Language” is both unique and arguably too quirky to be as “universal” as its title suggests. O Canada.
‘Universal Language’
Rating: Not Rated, no profanity, just a lot of turkeys. (In Farsi and French with subtitles)
Cast: Matthew Rankin, Pirouz Nemati, Rojina Esmaeili
Director: Rankin
Writers: Rankin, Ila Firouzabadi, Pirouz Nemati
Running Time: 1 hour, 29 minutes
Where to Watch: Coolidge Corner Theater
Grade: B
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