Review: In a Winnipeg few will recognize, 'Universal Language' speaks from a deep well of humanity

Take this four-star circuit of a Winnipeg that whitethorn ne'er exist. The stony, terse drama “Universal Language” has each the wind, snowfall and monotony 1 mightiness envision successful Manitoba, particularly for those who’ve yet to marque the trip. There are neighborhoods with the deadpan names Brown, Gray and Beige. But the signs connected the stores — adjacent the Tim Hortons — are written successful Persian, and that’s besides the connection that each quality speaks. There’s not 1 connection successful English, not adjacent “Do you talk English?”

Filmmaker Matthew Rankin is simply a Canadian past student who switched tracks from academia to art. Maybe there’s thing successful the frigid water, arsenic some helium and the town’s different beloved cult curio, Guy Maddin, marque eccentric odes to their humble homeland. Or possibly there’s thing successful Winnipeg’s video stores. Their touchstones are soundless auteurs and surrealists: F.W. Murnau, Fritz Lang, Luis Buñuel. Not lone does it consciousness that neither ever wanted to beryllium Steven Spielberg, it feels similar they’ve ne'er adjacent heard of his movies.

Rankin’s archetypal film, “The Twentieth Century,” was a psychedelic sham biography of erstwhile Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. Not knowing overmuch astir King myself (forgive me, I’m American and freshly alert that our neighbour to the northbound deserves much respect), I stumbled retired of it dazed by outlandish scenes of shoe-sniffing and seal-clubbing, which seemed to beryllium the idea. Rankin himself described it arsenic “one portion Canadian Heritage Minute and 1 portion ayahuasca decease trip.”

“Universal Language” is much sober but nary little strange. (Rankin truly has a happening for women with well-groomed mustaches.) These intersecting stories mostly instrumentality spot implicit Feb. 29, a fittingly illusive day. The code is adust and spartan — and funny, too, if you don’t caput snorting astatine idiosyncratic whose sons died successful a marshmallow-eating competition, oregon giggling implicit the sobs of a idiosyncratic weeping successful a cubicle for reasons that spell unexplained.

Here connected these frostbitten plains, the adults are bushed and the children are stoic small beings who crunch astir successful the snowfall with the aforesaid hassles arsenic everyone else. Sisters Nazgol (Saba Vahedyousefi) and Negin (Rojina Esmaeili, a fabulous glowerer) are trying to find an crystal prime truthful they tin spot currency retired of a frozen puddle. They request the wealth to bargain spectacles for a person who mislaid his successful a kerfuffle with a turkey.

Elsewhere, a circuit usher named Massoud (Pirouz Nemati) struggles to involvement visitors successful his favourite things astir Winnipeg: an bare mall, an flat gathering wherever “many bully chartless radical person lived,” a autobus seat with a briefcase that was forgotten successful 1978 and the continued unmolestation of which has made it a UNESCO World Heritage Monument to Inter-human Solidarity.

That UNESCO enactment is delivered successful the aforesaid neutral cadence arsenic everything else, similar 1 much absurdist joke. But really, that briefcase holds the movie’s soul. Small acts of kindness bash much to clasp unneurotic a nine than passports and borderline checks. Massoud besides pauses astatine a monument to Louis Riel, a 19th-century Canadian revolutionary of Franco-Chipewyan Métis descent, who was executed successful 1885 for starring an Indigenous rebellion for civilian rights. Riel is real; he’s a bona fide Memorable Manitoban, to poach a rubric from a Winnipegian blog. But Rankin puts Riel’s look connected his movie’s fictional money, excessively — a pointed accumulation plan prime that’s astatine erstwhile a pun connected Iran’s currency, the rial, and a mode to grant worth to Riel’s valor.

“Universal Language” isn’t an alternate past of Winnipeg. There’s nary backstory present of however this mentation of the metropolis came to be, but successful idiosyncratic asides. A turkey salesman (Bahram Nabatian) boasts that his household has been successful Manitoba for 90 years; a young begetter (Dara Najmabadi) points to the ice-cream basal wherever his parents fell successful love.

There mightiness beryllium audiences who spot this reimagined Winnipeg arsenic a provocation, uncomfortable that Tim Hortons present lone appears to service samovars of beverage portion thoroughfare vendors hawk donuts that are arsenic artfully displayed arsenic they mightiness beryllium successful Tehran. Rankin presents these demographic changes without argument. No 1 successful the movie comments that the city’s colonisation has inverted from 1 Iranian nonmigratory retired of 200 to a ratio of 200 to one. (And you ne'er perceive the connection “immigration” either.) Scouring the movie, I could lone find 1 illustration of a taste clash: a pistillate bringing successful a load of air-dried laundry from the snowfall and struggling to fold a babe onesie that’s frozen stiff.

The movie looks similar it was storyboarded connected a manila envelope. It’s arsenic fastidious arsenic a table clerk, with everything gridded and successful shades of greige. (The exertion Xi Feng cuts from brutalist bricks to a drab luncheon tray.) Cinematographer Isabelle Stachtchenko tends to clasp inactive and determination lone with intent — her camera seems to beryllium doing tai chi. Calm but ne'er slow, she holds shots conscionable agelong capable to instrumentality successful each softly hilarious detail: a store stocked with soda bottles of gravy, a kid dressed similar Groucho Marx, a antheral hidden wrong a pinkish Christmas histrion who sighs, “My misfortune is unrelenting.”

There’s a confusing bushed when, without warning, the movie switches cities and rewinds a day. Suddenly, we’re successful Montreal to conscionable different pb character, Matthew (Rankin), connected the day helium quits his occupation successful Quebec to instrumentality to Manitoba, wherever helium was born. This autochthonal Winnipegian has been distant truthful agelong that helium doesn’t cognize that his parent (Danielle Fichaud) has moved homes and recovered a caller Persian household to love.

Rankin has formed himself arsenic the outsider, the solitary depressive and the lone Caucasian main role. His Matthew speaks Persian, too, but the movie won’t travel retired and denote what this quality is really trying to say. Is Matthew untethered from his homeland due to the fact that of his practice — oregon conscionable due to the fact that he’s personally a spot cold? At the extremity of his storyline, there’s a disorienting originative determination that astir addresses the achromatic elephant successful the room: the question of who belongs successful this community. Really, I deliberation Rankin is utilizing his awkward aforesaid to explicit that belonging isn’t a birthright — it’s an action.

Rankin has said helium made the movie successful Persian arsenic an homage to the aboriginal works of Abbas Kiarostami and the Iranian New Wave of the 1960s and 1970s, which took spot halfway astir the satellite from “Jaws.” Take him astatine his word, sure. But Rankin besides knows that connection is simply a Canadian preoccupation. French-speaking Quebec continually debates a divorcement from the English-speaking provinces. Here, there’s a moving gag successful which nary 1 successful Montreal knows thing astir the remainder of the state — that gag is arsenic pointed arsenic Rankin gets astir real-world politics. Instead, the movie anticipates a question that it doesn’t outright inquire oregon answer: Does it substance what Canadians talk if they’re consenting to communicate?

Having planted that thought successful the permafrost, “Universal Language” gets escaped of dialog each together. Like the soundless directors helium adores, Rankin knows erstwhile words aren’t needed. One country takes spot astatine a cemetery that’s holding a crowded ceremonial for a cat. Except we can’t perceive immoderate audio from the mourners implicit the racket of cars zooming by. It’s the dependable of radical who can’t intermission to admit what’s astir them.

Even much moving is simply a nonverbal montage of Matthew arriving astatine his humble puerility home. This location is nary longer his, but the Persian household who lives determination ushers him wrong similar an honored guest. Over a pleasantly discordant people of dreamy physics chords and twanging banjos, Matthew finds pencil marks charting his maturation arsenic a kid portion these parents fuss implicit their ain caller baby. No 1 says thing but our bosom understands: This is however you marque strangers consciousness welcome.