‘Universal Language': A trilogy of Iranian-accented tales set in Canada
The quickest way I can sum up the slow-moving, weirdly touching cinematic oddity that is 'Universal Language' is to ask you to imagine what it would look like if Iran were in Canada.
This is not as insane as it sounds. Well, it is, but stay with me. Matthew Rankin, a Manitoba-born, Montreal-based experimental filmmaker, so loves the Iranian New Wave movies of the 1970s and beyond — the films of Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen and Samira Makhmalbaf, Jafar Panahi, and others — that he has ported their neorealist style, situations and language to the icebound terrain of a make-believe Winnipeg. All the men call one another 'Agha' here, a Farsi term of respect that extends behind the camera as well.
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