SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
The new movie "Universal Language" draws a line between two very different cities - one East and one West. The Eastern city is Tehran - Iran's storied capital with thousands of years of history and a population of nearly 10 million people. It's Western counterpart - Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Farsi).
SIMON: NPR's D. Parvaz explains in this review.
D PARVAZ, BYLINE: Winnipeg might not seem like a popular destination for Iranian immigrants. Canada's government says there are just 1,900 in a city of 750,000, but "Universal Language" imagines a world where that is very much the case. Canadian director Matthew Rankin fell in love with Iranian cinema in high school. He traveled to Iran over 20 years ago to study film there, but Rankin said the government crackdowns on filmmakers made that a bit of a fool's errand. Undeterred, he learned Farsi, or Persian, and years later found himself among a group of Iranian artists in Montreal. Several of those friends helped make this movie - notably, co-writers Ila Firouzabadi and Pirouz Nemati. This collaboration helps shape the Winnipeg we see in "Universal Language."
The film takes place in what Rankin describes as a third space - kind of a cross between icy Winnipeg and the lively streets of Iran's capital, Tehran. Its plotline follows three loosely defined stories, all of them simultaneously sad and uplifting.
MATTHEW RANKIN: It was sort of searching for the Winnipeg in Tehran and searching for the Tehran in Winnipeg. My go-to joke is that Iranian cinema emerges out of 1,000 years of poetry, and Canadian cinema emerges out of 50 years of discount furniture commercials. And there's something kind of absurd about putting those two together (laughter).
PARVAZ: Rankin plays a character named after himself - a dejected government employee who quits his job and travels from Montreal to Winnipeg to find his mother, with whom he's lost touch. In looking for her, he meets Massoud, who works at the Winnipeg Earmuff Authority - no, that's not a real thing - and freelances as a tour guide. Rankin's and Massoud's stories are woven with that of two schoolgirls, Negin and Nazgol, who find money stuck under ice and set about trying to liberate it. That last story line comes from Rankin's real life.
RANKIN: My grandmother told me the story when I was a boy about her life during the Depression. And she and her brother found a $2 bill frozen in the ice on the sidewalk in Winnipeg, and they went on this citywide odyssey to get it out.
PARVAZ: The Winnipeg in this film is visually harsh and sparse, with a collection of brutalist districts named after bland colors - the Beige District, the Brown District, the Grey District - distinctions that seem lost on the city's at-times befuddled Iranian residents. Co-writer Pirouz Nemati relates to this. He moved to Canada as a teen, and as nice as it was, he said he felt somewhat alien. He ultimately adjusted, somewhat like his character in the movie, Massoud, who finds his home and community in this tundra-esque version of Winnipeg.
PIROUZ NEMATI: There is a harshness in Iran. There's many reasons. In Winnipeg, it's the natural elements that really create a brutal environment. Yet I found something in Winnipeg that called back to Iran, is people are very friendly. And I think under great pressure, people do find that those lines of humanity, that connects them.
PARVAZ: Rankin's character feels like an outsider in the Winnipeg he left behind. Dressed in many layers of beige, he's often silent and still, observing the lives of the Iranians there. He's quietly moved, and at times bewildered, by their ability to connect with others, including himself.
Canadian and Iranian cultures blend seamlessly in this movie. For instance, the local Tim Horton coffee shop - a Canadian staple - is more like an Iranian teahouse that sells doughnuts. And in another moment, Iraj, a dyspeptic teacher, played by Mani Soleymanlou, asks Rankin if he knows the Winnipeg song before poetically reciting a Farsi translation of the 1968 ballad "These Eyes," and Rankin joins in.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE")
MANI SOLEYMANLOU: (As Iraj) It's pronounced with so many big words (ph).
(As Iraj, speaking Farsi).
RANKIN: (As Matthew, speaking Farsi).
SOLEYMANLOU: (As Iraj, speaking Farsi).
RANKIN: (As Matthew, speaking Farsi).
PARVAZ: That song is a Canadian classic by Winnipegger's The Guess Who. None of this presents as a culture clash. It's a cultural embrace. But you don't need to catch these references to understand and enjoy the movie. There's a humanity to it that defies language, place and politics.
ILA FIROUZABADI: We wanted to really make a place that is - there is no borders, no identity, not Iranian, not Canadians - just, like, intersection between two countries, two cities.
PARVAZ: That's co-writer and visual artist Ila Firouzabadi, who also has a small, hilariously unhinged role in this film, which is loaded with subtle, absurd humor. The laughs, though, are never at someone's expense. Even Winnipeg, which is the subject of several jokes, is treated with tenderness and reverence.
Here's Massoud telling a group of Iranians about a briefcase left behind on a bench in 1978. He tells them that both the bench and the briefcase have been declared a UNESCO Heritage Site, and they have questions.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, speaking Farsi).
NEMATI: (As Massoud, speaking Farsi).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, non-English language spoken).
NEMATI: (As Massoud, speaking Farsi).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, non-English language spoken).
PARVAZ: In other words, even the mundane might be worth preserving. And then there are the turkeys, a visual gag that runs throughout the movie, ultimately contributing to the Farsi title of the movie (speaking Farsi), or "Song Of The Turkey." I wasn't able to secure an interview with the turkeys, so I asked another actor in the movie about what it was like to work with them.
SABA VAHEDYOUSEFI: My favorite scene might be, like, any scene that has the turkeys in them. I'm not going to lie. Those turkeys, it's crazy, like, how good they were in the movie.
PARVAZ: That's Saba Vahedyousefi, the now 15-year-old who played Nazgol, one of the two kids trying to get at the money stuck under ice. I asked her what she thought the movie was about, and she said that to her, it was about being able to build community, no matter what your background or language. And to Vahedyousefi, the universal language is friendship because...
VAHEDYOUSEFI: You can develop friendship anywhere, anytime, at any moment.
PARVAZ: The film's co-writers clearly had friendship in mind. Whereas a lot of Iranian books and movies begin with, in the name of God, Nemati points out that "Universal Language" starts with, in the name of friendship. The movie isn't intended to be a commentary on immigration or politics, but the centering of empathy and humanity, explains Nemati, was purposeful.
NEMATI: At the time that there's so much division and polarities in our world today, we wanted to do something that was connecting and trying to find that common ground, you know, and that humanity between us.
PARVAZ: Disarmingly sincere and wonderfully strange, "Universal Language" questions the idea of identity and borders, inviting us to consider the richness that comes from blending the self with the other. Firouzabadi sums up the appeal of the movie with a Farsi expression.
FIROUZABADI: (Speaking Farsi).
PARVAZ: Loosely translated, it means that which comes from the heart goes to the heart. "Universal Language" opened in theaters on Friday.
D. Parvaz, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE GUESS WHO SONG, "THESE EYES") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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