Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Matthew Rankin
Starring: Matthew Rankin, Rojina Esmaeili, Danielle Fichaud, Sobhan Javadi
Universal Language, Matthew Rankin's absurdist indie melodrama, bears all the
hallmarks of the mode. The opening sequences, filmed in palpable 16mm,
depict a school in static longshot, which objectifies the action occurring
within a backgrounded classroom window as a beleaguered teacher (Mani Soleymanlou) arrives late to his pupils (12 years old-ish?) whooping it up in the
warmth from the outside snow. The class are a bricolage of the sort of
kids who would probably grow up to feature in Wes Anderson films; one is
dressed like Groucho Marx while another claims that they couldn't do their
homework because a turkey stole their spectacles. It is very whimsical;
very whimsical indeed. The tone is set for a quirky hour or so, and your
reception of Universal Language will depend on your
appreciation of such fancy (disclosure: as an earthy Taurean, I'm not
especially keen on irony, so adjust your filter accordingly...).
Teacher is furious. He remonstrates that he is "not like other authority
figures" because he plays an electric guitar and he's cool. Fatal mistake,
mate. The satire of this deluded pedagogue was especially spot on to me,
as someone who Works With Young People: the brash optimism that kids will
ever envision a teacher as "cool," the idiocy that they will somehow share
the same values as you (it reminded me of Matthew Broderick in
Election - surely the most coruscating and accurate
depiction of a teacher in cinema since Sid Caesar's berserk Coach Calhoun
in Grease). The dynamic is compounded later when, fed up with his life not being
an ersatz Dead Poet's Society, the teacher quits and boards a coach to Winnipeg where he bores the
other passengers to sleep, haha. There's a tangibility in these early
scenes which isn't quite sustained throughout the ensuing polysemic
narrative, wherein we follow the intertwined tales of the teacher, a tour
guide, a disillusioned government official and some kids attempting to
salvage a bank note frozen in a lake.
The stories are realised within a fantasia milieu, which purports to be
Winnipeg/Quebec which yet consists of characters exclusively speaking in
Farsi or French, a cosmopolita visually enhanced by the director/writer's
time studying with Iranian filmmakers. Warming to
Universal Language's personal themes, a passenger on that Winnipeg bound bus is played by
Rankin himself, with the character's (who is questing to reconnect with an
unwell parent, an indie drama uber theme) name eponymous.
Universal Language is presented as a sort of autobiography,
with casual observations and quotidian experience heightened via the
film's vivid aesthetic. Each frame of Universal Language is
constructed with controlled vision, and it's regretful that I didn't see
this on a bigger screen which would best exemplify Rankin's fealty to
cinematic spectacle.
The arch remove of Universal Language's mien is at times a little too aloof and leans into a culturally
specific self-mockery, which, despite the film's title, feels slightly
exclusionary: Tim Horton coffee is pointedly referenced, and Rankin
himself comments that "Canadian cinema emerges from 40 years of discount
furniture ads," a blunt style indexed here. The lachrymose rhythms of the
film are decidedly Canadese too, with deadpan characters sharing that
respective family members "choked to death on a marshmallow" or were
"flattened" by a steamroller, the ironic intonation robbing the images of
implied Looney Tunes energy. Bridging the plot, Matthew's mother is cared
for by Pirouz Nemati's tour guide (disaffected, as custom), who
takes tourists about the underwhelming points of interest of Winnipeg,
spots which range from utilitarian buildings and a cemetery in the middle
of a highway. The conceit is a microcosm of
Universal Language, which attempts, and largely succeeds, in its sideways look at human
beings and the strange world they interact within.
Universal Language plays at the
2024 Belfast Film Festival on October 31st.
