Universal Language (2024) Movie Drinking Game
Take a Drink: for glorious 80s fashion
Take a Drink: for recognizable places and brands rendered in Farsi
Take a Drink: for turkeys
Take a Drink: for sweet earmuffs
Do a Shot: for references to Kleenex
By: Henry J. Fromage (A Toast) –
Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin made quite the debut with his bizarre, extremely Canadian Twentieth Century, which played on the tropes and filmmaking techniques of silent cinema even as it skewered the politics of his homeland.
Now with Universal Language, he tackles an entirely different aesthetic- 70s-90s Iranian arthouse flicks, like those of Abbas Kiarostami or Majid Majidi, but once again speaking to Canadian concerns and illuminating some universal ones in doing so.
A Toast
It takes a minute to realize this 100% Farsi-language film is all set in Canada, or at least some version of 1980s Quebec and Winnipeg, although the time it takes place is indistinct at best. All signage is in the language of Iran, even Iranian-style Canadian government propaganda posters that include one with Justin Trudeau that implies this may all happening in current day. Even recognizable brands, like Tim Hortons and Old Dutch Potato Chips have received an Iranian makeover.
This all makes for a film suffused with droll, dull-colored absurdity, often reminding me of the reigning master of such, Swedish filmmaker Roy Andersson. The color palette is all beiges and concrete greys with splashes of 80s fashion-driven garish color, and wide shots of the people strolling through it are all quite funny in simply their staging, much less the odd behavior like idiosyncratic on-foot tours that feature things like have 30 minute moments of silence for the father of Winnipeg, or visiting UNESCO World Heritage Site bus benches with beloved abandoned suitcases atop them.
Besides all of the humorous setups and deadpan dialogue, though, Universal Language is a love letter to the lives immigrants build, amalgams of the cultures they leave and those they adopt, and the way they integrate into and transform the different cultures around them. Matthew Rankin must have had some dearly beloved Iranian immigrant friends and neighbors when growing up, especially when we learn he shares the name of the seemingly one non-Iranian character, and ultimately even experiences some sort of body or life swap with one of his Iranian peers- a gesture of radical assimilation, on both sides.
Verdict
Universal Language is a big step up for Matthew Rankin, a beautifully absurd humanist story of culture, integration, and transformation.
