Canada’s Oscar contender Universal Language is a tribute to Quebec and Iranian cinema

Matthew Rankin won my heart back in 2019 with his deranged feature-length heritage minute on William Lyon Mackenzie King, The Twentieth Century. His follow-up, Universal Language, is an all-together different beast. Part laugh out loud comedy, part homage to Iranian melodrama, the film re-imagines an alternate Canada where the two solitudes are French and Farsi. Set between Montreal and Winnipeg, the film is an incisive look at childhood, grief and communication against an improbably beautiful sterile background. Rankin’s camera transforms the institutional modernist architecture of Canadian cities into something minimalist and grandiose; reimagining Canada as a kind of mythic civilization of harsh edges softened by billowing snow. 

Universal Language brims with imagination, embodying a kind of artisanal spirit. It reimagines Tim Hortons as a Persian tea lounge, Quebec ministry as prison-like offices adorned by Papa François Legault and Winnipeg as an unusual tourist destination. As the film progresses, though, its pure comic spirit gives way to something more personal. Rankin plays Matthew, a man on a pilgrimage back home to reunite with his mother. While much of the film is focused on the troublemaker (mis)adventures of elementary school-aged students, the film comes to fruition in this second part, as Matthew’s life intersects with the hometown he left many moons ago. The movie becomes a poetic investigation of grief, compassion and sacrifice. The imaginative touches of magical realism no longer serve just the film’s comedy, but a deeper sense of both alienation and reconciliation. In a festival that showcases the very best of world cinema, Matthew Rankin made my favourite film I saw at Cannes 2024 — a rare film that is completely visionary, funny, touching and life-affirming. The Cannes audience seemed to share my feelings, too, as it won the inaugural audience prize for the Director’s Fortnight. ■

This review was originally published as part of our Cannes 2024 coverage.

Universal Language will open in Montreal cinemas on Friday, Jan. 31.

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