‘Universal Language’ Paints a Bizarre, Beautiful National Portrait

“In the name of friendship.”

Thus reads the opening title card in experimental Winnipeg filmmaker Matthew Rankin’s absurdist new feature film, Universal Language. The film premiered at Cannes earlier this year, where it won the Directors’ Fortnight audience award, and will play at the Vancouver International Film Festival this month. It’s an apt dedication for a film invested not only in Canadian identity, but in the bonds of community and the perils of social isolation.

Set in Winnipeg and Montreal, or rather warped versions of those Canadian cities, Universal Language follows numerous friendships and social groups. In the snowy, unforgiving winter of Winnipeg, children enlist the help of a local tour guide to recover money frozen in the ice. Meanwhile, in Montreal, an unfulfilled government worker resigns from his job, opting for a pilgrimage home to Winnipeg to reconnect with his family.

It’s an unusual film that will find a home among both Canadian and international audiences who love deadpan humour and social satire. But for all its alterity, Universal Language has been officially selected as Canada’s entry at the Oscars, competing for the 2025 Best International Feature Film award.

The Academy may be the most mainstream arbiter of taste in cinema, so there’s a wonderful irony in a film so dedicated to resisting conformity getting such recognition from the establishment.

Throughout the film, characters stave off loneliness by coming together, sometimes in unlikely ways. A bizarre reimagining of Canadiana serves as the backdrop for their journeys, or rather as an integral bit of context that defines their everyday existence.

I spoke to Rankin when he was last at VIFF in 2019 with his feature debut, The Twentieth Century. At the time, he described a research process whereby he would frequently fall asleep while reading through archival materials until he eventually stopped trying to separate historical records from his own subconscious reality.

A similar slippage is at play in Universal Language. While so-called universal markers of Canadian identity — Tim Hortons, snow, curling, bilingualism — abound, they come with a twist.

In the world of Rankin’s film, it is Farsi and French that make up the nation’s official languages. “Riels,” named for Manitoba folk hero Louis Riel, are the national currency. Timmy’s has familiar branding but serves Iranian treats alongside your morning double-double.

Universal Language does not present a mainstream or accurate vision of Canada. Even stylistically, Rankin draws as much from Iranian cinema as from fellow Winnipeg filmmaker Guy Maddin. Throughout the film, I found myself feeling pangs of nostalgia for childhood memories trapped somewhere between truth and fabrication. Even the Farsi language, foreign to my own bilingual ears, seemed entirely at home alongside more typical markers of Canadianness.

We talk about multiculturalism a lot in Canada, and we debate its place here, but it’s rarely embraced to this heightened extent. Canada is, undeniably, a diverse place. There is no singular Canadian identity or Canadian community, but rather many communities made up of many identities.

It's refreshing to see an alternative to dominant narratives presented in such a bold, direct way. Immigration is a hot-button issue across the country, and we can be downright xenophobic. But Universal Language puts forward a different version of Canada that feels simultaneously familiar, hopeful and new.

The Farsi language seemingly spoken by all — perhaps the closest thing to the film’s titular universal language — highlights how closed off we are to non-Anglo or non-Franco cultures in Canada, at least officially. It’s normal to hear dozens of languages spoken from coast to coast to coast, even if they don’t appear on signs wishing us welcome or bienvenue.

There’s something proudly marginal about Rankin’s approach. In Universal Language, like in The Twentieth Century, Rankin isn’t telling the officially sanctioned version of history or of Canada generally.

We see this reflected in the film’s more comedic elements. People live in districts named for their drab colours. Quebec is overflowing with portraits of Premier François Legault, like a lo-fi Big Brother, always watching.

A tour guide shows people mundane reminders of life: a forgotten briefcase on a bench, a dubiously historic apartment building where no one of note has ever lived, a mall theatre where they play only one-dimensional films because 3D is too exciting.

We tend to be a bit reserved in our national pride in Canada, certainly. There is no Alamo or Mount Rushmore here in the Great White North. But Universal Language pushes that national faux humility to its breaking point. It’s made farcical, as perhaps it should be.

In many cases in the film, even the action happens at the margins. Beautifully composed shots force you to look to the sides and into corners to see the plot unfold, reminding us that there’s always more to discover outside the spotlight.

Canada is a land of contradictions. All of the film’s absurdity is tempered by a remarkable (if figurative) warmth. People are kind to each other. They have traditions. They celebrate. They congregate in schools and coffee shops. They look out for one another, becoming surrogate families to those in need.

And what better vision of Canada to present to the world at the next Academy Awards. One full of hard edges and soft middles, silliness, ugliness, beauty, freedom, oppression, diversity, conformity, fact, fiction and all the weirdness that truly defines us.

Beneath all of that is a simple longing to connect. If not to understand one another, then to at least share something.

So, here’s to friendship.

‘Universal Language’ screens at the Vancouver International Film Festival on Friday.