Already celebrated for his unique brand of cinematic playfulness, Matthew Rankin (The Twentieth Century) crafts another brilliant blend of wit and formal rigour with his second feature, Universal Language. Not only did the film play Cannes this year, but it is the Canadian entry for the Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. It’s no wonder.

Universal Language, a delightfully clever offbeat comedy and probably Rankin’s most accessible film to date, is ingeniously deceptive in its strategies. That’s only part of its charm. On one level, it’s an allegory about the inescapable ties that bind, and on the other, it questions the very nature of what connects people. This film also has the added appeal of a genuine warmth that ripples out of its finer elements despite its initially bleak premise.

Surreal, albeit with incredible moments of humanity, the story has plenty of nonsensical strands that eventually, inevitably, fuse to make an eye-opening amount of sense. The film takes place in an unrecognizable Canada, an undefinable land where the official languages are Farsi and French. The action exists out of time with a blend of storylines that appear to follow seemingly unrelated characters.

Two young girls, Negin and Nazgol find money frozen within the ice, and search for ways to retrieve it and claim it for their own. They want to help their friend. At the same time, Massoud conducts increasingly absurd tours around the landmarks of Winnipeg. The histories that he tries to explain don’t make a lot of sense to the foreigners in his care. Matthew, a civil servant in Quebec, quits his job to travel back home to the West to reconnect with his mother. Eventually, beyond logic, and almost despite it, these worlds do collide.

Events and characters are certainly related by place, with the majority of the action happening in the bleak and wintry landscape of Winnipeg. This locale is presented almost as an extreme netherworld, a place where time and place, and even a sense of individuality, are buried under the frozen, drab terrain. Scenarios are also presented with an uncanny sense of day-to-day neorealism which possess a sometimes-pedestrian rhythm that somehow manages to keep building in intensity.

Rankin presents a meticulously crafted vision that sneaks up on the viewer. Within this harsh climate, characters and a sense of community do start to emerge as details mount and realities shift. People’s lives intersect, and slowly the incredibly stark and snowy white cinematography begins to allow colour in – warm and glow-y neon inspired hues that peak into the frame and begin to create tiny sparks of viability. Suddenly that barren landscape becomes the perfect backdrop to highlight the life force populating it.

Anyone who adores the work of the late master Abbas Kiarostami and those of his fellow surviving Iranian cinephiles (like Jafar Panahi, for example) will recognize many nods to these geniuses of subtlety and nuance. Despite the many bizarre characters and circumstances the film develops an intensity even in the slightest of basic human encounters. As the girls proceed on their quest for tools to unearth the money, they rely on strangers to guide them. These adults encompass quite the range of personalities but also provide certain degrees of aid. Some are helpful, some are dismissive. It’s a familiar scenario in any journey of this kind.

Actually, Rankin’s narrative strategies are a cunning mix that pay tribute to his roots and his cinematic passions. While partly an homage to the Iranian New Wave masters, Universal Language is also part acknowledgement of his inextricable bond with his local heroes in Winnipeg, like Guy Maddin. The film is a fitting tribute to the unofficial film school of Canada’s West, the Winnipeg Film Group, with its storied history as a place where film geeks indulged their obsessions, a little bit like the French New Wave, but with lots and lots of snow.

With the language barriers and the stunning lack of knowledge of the geography on the part of Matthew’s boss in Quebec (though many Canadians will nod with recognition), Rankin is certainly playing off the familiar notion of the two solitudes that has existed between English and French Canada. One can see this as a worldwide phenomenon that highlights barriers in any national identity – be they those of language, geography, class, religion etc. There are so many divisive factors evident.

There are national in-jokes that are deliciously biting and specific to the filmmaker’s place of birth. The film does operate as a quintessentially Canadian satire with a wider message about connection and miscommunication. What Rankin makes clear is that we’re all actually connected and things like language barriers are just random and don’t really matter in the end.

Universal Language has a wider appeal when it comes to its more philosophical bent. It’s a fable about searching for something and finding something else. In the end, it all leads to the same thing: that unavoidable human connection. The film speaks to humanity’s need for bonds that happen in the most unlikely places whether we look for them or not–isn’t that what’s essentially universal?

Universal Language screened as part of the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Get more That Shelf TIFF coverage here