Matthew Rankin – ALLIANCE OF WOMEN FILM JOURNALISTS

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (Melbourne IFF 2024) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas

August 26, 2024August 26, 2024 Alexandra Heller-Nicholas abbas kiarostami, Iranian cinema, jafar panahi, Matthew Rankin, Melbourne IFF 2024, Universal Language

Universal Language is a deeply personal film while – as its title indicates – having much broader appeal. Playing a barely disguised version of himself as a filmmaker returning home, Matthew Rankin himself is very much the heart of the film, and through his stand-in teases out everything from his complex emotional relationship with Winnipeg to his long-held affection for Iranian cinema. Wholly original and brought to life with an overwhelming sense of charm and sincerity, Universal Language is a film like no other.

Festivals Reviews

UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (Melbourne IFF 2024) – Review by Nadine Whitney

August 26, 2024August 27, 2024 Nadine Whitney abbas kiarostami, Guy Maddin, Ila Firouzabadi, Mani Soleymanlou, Matthew Rankin, Melbourne IFF 2024, Pirouz Nemati, Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, winnipeg

Manitoban director Matthew Rankin is an alchemist, who along with his friend and mentor, Guy Maddin reshapes Winnipeg into a mythic place they can reconfigure through dialogue with lost cinematic traditions. His previous film, The Twentieth Century, was an imagined biography of Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister Mackenzie King, stylised somewhere between a peek-a-boo pre-code silent and a Soviet era propaganda film. Universal Language starts a conversation with Iranian film, especially that of Abbas Kiarostami in the late 1970s to the mid 1980s.