30/26
class of 97th Academy Awards in 2025
An absurd triptych of seemingly unrelated stories finds a mysterious intersection in this story set somewhere between Winnipeg and Tehran. These Eyes Written by Randy Bachman and Burton Cummings Performed by The Guess Who. From its cinematography and its usual search for symmetry, static or travel shots, and pleasing aesthetics of a dreamlike atmosphere that adds to the universality of the settings, to its story that revolves around different characters, how their lives intersect and animate the sometimes polite dialogue.
A freelance tour guide with strange choices for his tour, etc
times not so much, Wes Anderson’s influence transcends Matthew Rankin’s feature from beginning to end. As in Anderson’s films, Rankin is interested in exploring the reality of his film, a reality that is full of oddities that serve as fertile ground for comedy. An angry teacher in class yells at students, one of whom claims that a turkey stole his glasses; one dressed as Groucho Marx because he wants to be a comedian; and the other as a fashionista.
Rankin’s dexterity manages to evoke the surreal dreamlike fairy tale, but also the melancholy of obvious introspection
A Universal Language manages to be hilarious whenever it wants to, in a comedy that consists of cheeky, deadpan and dark humor. There are many times when its events border on absurdism or surrealism, which contributes to the comedy that bathes it, but never shakes its goal of thought-provoking profundity. Elements and emotions that combine and give life to a special experience between places and times, reality and dreams.
The camera is sometimes static from afar, observing their movement and its effect on the environment, rather than focusing on their faces and expressions in close-ups
For example, in the reality of the film, even though we are in Canada, French, not to mention English, seems to be another language, and in its place is Persian. They all talk about it, and there are signs and billboards written on it, making it something close yet distant, familiar yet unfamiliar, mixed with a culturally and demographically blind new framing of reality, and movement like a color palette, there is a constant desire to inhabit the spaces the characters are in. It is as if the place is as important to the telling of the story as the characters, and Rankin wants to make sure we immerse ourselves in it as tourists from a foreign land.