Matthew Rankin’s audacious comedy Universal Language is as absurd as it is subtly reflective.
There is a good chance that “Universal Language,” the latest feature from writer, director and actor Matthew Rankin, will earn some well-intentioned if superficial comparisons to the work of Wes Anderson. The sharp playfulness of the tone, set in a pointedly surreal version of the Canadian cities of Winnipeg and Montreal where Fasrsi is now the dominant language, as well as the dynamic visual style certainly deserve to be held in such high esteem.
However, to just reduce the film to such an easy point of comparison is to miss out on the full beautiful picture that is being given vibrant life here by Rankin alongside his co-writers Pirouz Nemati and Ila Firouzabadi. While Anderson admirers may be well-positioned to enjoy “Universal Language,” they will also find there is plenty that is joyously distinct. It’s a film whose magnificence sneaks up on you, delighting in plenty of clever silliness before hitting you with a succession of somber scenes that lay you flat.
Premiering Saturday in the Director’s Fortnight section at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, the film opens with a perfectly framed exterior shot of a school where a group of students play in a classroom as their teacher (Mani Soleymanlou) is running late. This is merely the first sign of how expertly well-shot the entire film is by cinematographer Isabelle Stachtchenko. When the teacher arrives, he is angry that he’s late and starts laying into all of the kids who have now fallen into silence, asking them about what dreams they have for themselves before dismissing them one by one.
