Best International Film: Canada's "Universal Language"

by Cláudio Alves

In the last hours of voting for the Oscar nominations, let's celebrate one of the best films up for Academy consideration. It's none other than the Canadian submission for Best International Film, Matthew Rankin's sophomore feature – Universal Language. If watching the director's debut, The Twentieth Century, felt like witnessing the second coming of fellow Winnipegger Guy Maddin, seeing the wonder of his latest work is akin to re-encountering Jacques Tati in the 21st century. Or perchance a Manitoban Abbas Kiarostami. Rather than evading such comparisons, Rankin runs straight at them, making his latest project into a dialogue between filmic languages and other idioms along the way, reaching for the fantastical, so specific as to be universal…

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Review: The Twentieth Century

By: Patrick Gratton

Canadian history remembers William Lyon Mackenzie King as one of our most defining statesmen. King was the longest running Prime Minister to hold office in Ottawa, and a central ally to both Winston Churchill and FDR, in mobilizing Canada in World War II. Historians commend Mackenzie King as a central rallying cry for a divided country, whose skill set helped him reach across the aisle, mending multiple differences and helping grow Canada’s Independence even as it remained a British colony.

In his feature film debut The Twentieth Century, Winnipeg-born Matthew Rankin subverts this story. Set in 1899 and told in ten chapters, the film omits all of the soon-to-be Prime Minister’s triumphs, focusing instead on Mackenzie King’s (Dan Bierne) candidacy to be the country’s leader. Rankins shows a steady hand, confidently orchestrating a film that’s equal parts  German expressionism, 1920s melodrama and absurdist satire. The film unapologetically ransacks the mythos of the Canadian identity.

The future prime minister is depicted as a precious man-child, with an overbearing mother (Louis Negin, in drag)...

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