Universal Language – TIFF Canada’s Top Ten 2024
February 5 to February 9, 2025
FILM FESTIVAL
Canada's Top Ten 2024
TIFF Canada's Top Ten
The city of Winnipeg finds itself intersecting with Tehran in Universal Language. Set in an alternate reality, where French and Persian are the dominant cultures in Canada, Matthew (Matthew Rankin) boards a bus to return from Montreal to his hometown of Winnipeg. However, when he tries calling his mother, Matthew is surprised when a strange man named Massoud (Pirouz Nemati), a local freelance tour guide, answers the phone and asks Matthew to wait for him at the local Tim Horton’s. Meanwhile, children Negin (Rojina Esmaeili) and Nazgol (Saba Vahedyousefi) find 500 Rials frozen in the ground and try to find a way to dig them out.
Universal Language Synopsis
Universal Language is the sophomore feature film from writer and director Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century), who also stars as a fictionalized version of himself. The film takes place in an alternate reality version of Canada set somewhere between Winnipeg and Tehran. This includes Persian interpolations of Canadian brands such as Tim Horton’s or Old Dutch Potato Chips. The film follows a series of intersecting stories, and a lot of turkeys, which come together in a very absurd fashion.
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Matthew Rankin continues to follow in the surreal footsteps of fellow Winnipeg-based filmmaker Guy Maddin with Universal Language, a film that is nearly entirely dependent on the absurd humour that comes from the film’s inexplicable combination of Canadian and Persian cultures. The film is constructed in such a way that even the subtitles translating the Farsi signage contribute to the humour of the film, where even “TIM HORTON’S (ALWAY FRESH)” can generate laughter.
However, Universal Language is absurd to the point where the film doesn’t make a lick of sense. I can’t even figure out the reason why Matthew Rankin decided to combine Canadian and Persian cultures in the first place. The result is Universal Language being a film that some people may believe is good for a laugh, but others will be left scratching their heads.
Trailer for Universal Language – TIFF Canada’s Top Ten 2024
