Tag Archives: Matthew Rankin

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Matthew Rankin, Rojina Esmaeili, Saba Vahedyousefi, Pirouz Nemati

PLOT: The lives of a civil servant, a tour guide, two girls searching for a way to thaw a banknote frozen in ice, and a turkey magnate collide in a Winnipeg where everyone inexplicably speaks Farsi.

Still from universal language (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Rankin’s icy fantasia is the premier (well, only) fusion of Canadian absurdism and Iranian neorealism.

COMMENTS: You’re a director infatuated with Iranian realist dramas, but you live in Winnipeg. What do you do? Round up every Farsi speaker in Manitoba and put them into a comedy set in Canada, obviously. Be sure to include a guy wandering around dressed like a Christmas tree, a shrine to an abandoned briefcase, and a turkey beauty contest-winner, just for that added note of realism.

Universal Language‘s plot is a woven Persian rug, composed of three major strands: two sisters hunt for a way to retrieve a 500 Rial note they find frozen under several inches of ice, a disillusioned civil servant returns home after an unhappy stint in Quebec, and a tour guide leads a bored group through the city’s bland attractions (“Winnipeg is a strange destination for tourism”). Most of the action occurs in a range from Winnipeg’s Beige District all the way to its Grey District, along bazaar-like streets bustling with street vendors. And surprisingly, despite its many detours though drag bingo parlors, Persian Tim Hortons, and shots of beautiful turkeys, in the end every plot corner clicks in place like a piece in a puzzle. It’s thoroughly comedic and absurd, but by the time Rankin turns sincere for the ending, it works, because the committed comedy of the earlier scenes seduces you into accepting this bizarre world as a real place.

Rankin’s debut feature, The Twentieth Century, was (to say the least) heavily indebted to (who Ranking calls “one of my cinematic parents”). Here, Rankin moves only slightly out of the shadow of Maddin, only to position himself under a canopy of other directors. Scenes like the guy who dresses as a Christmas tree, and other dreamlike comic surprises I won’t spoil, could have been dreamed up by . The bit where Matthew buys sleeping pills would fit comfortably in a sketch. Besides these, there’s all the Iranian directors, led by . (Several of Universal Language‘s plotlines are lifted from Iranian movies, although heavily warped and refracted by the narrative lens.) And in an interview included with the press kit, Rankin acknowledges everyone from to to the (among the less obscure names) as influences. In some sense, Universal Language nothing but a shameless pastiche of homages; but, because it reflects such specific tastes and obsessions, it creates a unique universe. And paradoxically, that very eclecticism is what makes the film so relatable. Rankin isn’t shy about his influences, which is refreshing. He’s working towards a cinema of tributes. And cinema is a universal language.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“By converting his drab hometown into an exotic land filled with nostalgia (albeit a very niche nostalgia, primarily for Criterion Channel subscribers), Rankin seems to be seeking out the universal language of cinema itself. In his own very weird way he manages to find it, turning an everyday place into something momentarily special — which is what all good movies are meant to do.”–Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter (festival screening)

Capsules, List Candidates

LIST CANDIDATE: THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (2019)

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Must See

(For Canadians)

Recommended

(For normal people)

DIRECTED BY: Matthew Rankin

FEATURING: Dan Beirne, Sarianne Cormier, Seán Cullen,

PLOT: William Lyon Mackenzie King modestly rises to the plateau of Canadian supremacy to become Prime Minister.

Still from "The Twentieth Century" (2019)

COMMENTS: During my first visit to Montreal’s Fantasia Film Festival in 2017, I made the acquaintance of several Canadian college students. I had the opportunity to talk politics with one of them—a hot topic at the time. One young man, in particular, was full of passion and ideals, like many college students. But he was very Canadian about it. No fan of Trudeau (“too centrist”), he was also skeptical of the recently elected French president Emmanuel Macron. Despite the fervor I knew burned within him, the most damning criticism of the French prez he dared speak was: “too centrist.” He limited his body language to a slightly uncomfortable sidelong glance.

Canada’s subdued idealism is captured flawlessly in Rankin’s directorial feature debut, The Twentieth Century. Structured as a 1940s melodrama and styled as a 1920s Expressionist nightmare, its tone fits squarely (and appropriately) in the realm of a 1930s screwball comedy of manners. Our hero (though he would be loathe to designate himself so loftily) is the ever well-intentioned and deferential William Lyon Mackenzie King (Dan Beirne, reminiscent of also-Canadian comedian Martin Short). King’s mother long ago had a vision of her son becoming Prime Minister, and though his path to success is long and trying—nigh thwarted at times by a sinister doctor, an embarrassing shoe fetish, and a fascistic Governor General—King ultimately defeats the love-cult Quebecois separatist candidate to become the most foremost (foremostest?) among Canadian equals.

As a comedy, The Twentieth Century is pure gold. I ultimately gave up writing down amusing quotes as Rankin & Co. continued to hammer home just how incredibly quaint, civil, and bizarre they and their fellow citizens were and continue to be. (One recurring mantra stands out that sums up the Canadian experience: “…as certain as a winter’s day in Springtime.”) All the sets and special effects are Maddin-esque, to the point that I think the Guy’s gone mainstream (in Canada, anyway). The villains are all cartoonishly evil, the heroes are all cartoonishly mild-mannered, and Winnipeg is dismissed as the home of “heroin, bare naked ladies, and reasonably-priced furniture”.

Though we’ve dropped the “Why It Won’t Make the List” blurb, I feel it necessary to mention in case I’m called out about this omission. Quite a lot of weird goings-on do go on (ejaculating cactus metaphor, blind-folded-ice-floe marriage ceremony, and PM Bert Harper impaled by narwhal, among them), but ultimately it feels like the film is trying too hard with that angle, drawing too much attention to the oddities instead of letting them play on the fringes. (Even its poster crows, “…men play women and women play men!” So what?) The Twentieth Century succeeds brilliantly in being funny, however, and that’s something to actually crow aboot.

Gregory J. Smalley adds: I think we can now officially say that Guy Maddin isn’t an auteur; he’s a genre. The Twentieth Century proves that Guy Maddin movies need not be made by Guy Maddin.[efn_note]‘ Crime Wave (1985) proved this maxim was true even before there were Guy Maddin movies to emulate.[/efn_note] Rankin isn’t even trying to hide Guy’s influence; as a humble and patriotic Canadian, he’s embracing his national heritage. But it works, totally. If you’re a director making a film noir, you include shadowy lighting, a femme fatale, and a hard-drinking gumshoe. If you’re a director making a Guy Maddin movie, you include Expressionist landscapes, a timid hero plagued by sexual fetishes, and Louis Negin in drag.

Obviously, Giles’ last paragraph anticipates that I would object to his not nominating this film as an Apocrypha Candidate.  And I do. The Twentieth Century has an ejaculating cactus. That should automatically make it a candidate as one of the weirdest films of all time. Don’t overthink these things.

I know little about William Lyon Mackenzie King, Canada’s three-time Prime Minister and FDR contemporary, but I think this biopic may not be completely accurate. Per Wikipedia, King secretly believed in spiritualism and used a medium to speak to his dead mother, historical trivia that may illuminate Negin’s role in the film. On the other hand, I highly doubt that King was a proud champion seal-clubber. In America, when we want to make a comedy about a revered leader, we cast Abe Lincoln as a vampire hunter—a take so ridiculous that it can’t be possibly seen as impolite or belittling. Canadians, on the other hand, are happy to depict a national hero as a man consumed by repressed ambition and an obsession with boot-sniffing. Superficially polite, actually subversive; that’s Canada for ya.

The Twentieth Century debuts tomorrow (Friday, Nov. 20) in virtual theaters (and possibly some live dates, too). Check The Twentieth Century home page for a list of vendors/venues.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… a cheerfully bonkers satire… [Set in] a time when William Lyon Mackenzie King was busily striving to become Canada’s weirdest prime minister…”–Peter Howell, Toronto Star (festival screening)