Universal Language
Wednesday, March 5th
7:30pm at the Capitol Centre
89 mins | 2024 | Canada
Dir: Matthew Rankin
Language: French, Persian
Universal Language
Winter. Somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg. Negin and Nazgol find a large sum of money frozen deep within the sidewalk ice and try to find a way to get it out. Massoud leads a group of befuddled tourists upon an increasingly-absurd walking tour of Winnipeg monuments and historic sites. Matthew leaves his job at the Quebec government and embarks upon a mysterious journey to visit his estranged mother. Time, geography and identities crossfade, interweave and collide into a surreal comedy of misdirection.
Structured like a Venn diagram — at the point of confluence between Jacques Tati and Abbas Kiarostami’s The Koker Trilogy — Universal Language is at once a diary film, an absurdist city symphony and a welling-up of confinement-era emotion exploring the mysterious interzone where one person ends and the rest of the world begins. An elusive, half-remembered dream of home, solitude, our responsibilities to others and the wild turkeys that haunt us.
Tickets are available at the door.
General Admission: $12
North Bay Film Members: $10
Students: $5
“Rankin may have conceived Universal Language in the spirit of homage, but there’s something undeniably original about the end result. Don’t be surprised if that translates into a modest cult following and more creative ideas in the future.”
– Peter Debruge, Varitey
“The message persisting through the dry punchlines is that to care for your neighbor, to care for all the oddities of home, is to care for yourself.”
– Jacob Oller, AV Club
“By converting his drab hometown into an exotic land filled with nostalgia, Rankin seems to be seeking out the universal language of cinema itself.”
– Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter