An absurdist triptych of apparently unrelated tales discovers an enigmatic connection in Universal Language. A jointly envisioned metropolis is created by director Matthew Rankin and co-screenwriters-producers Ila Firouzabadi and Pirouz Nemati. The mind may experience the fantastic fabrication of a place situated somewhere between Winnipeg and Tehran for a dreamlike ninety minutes, erasing the sense of distance.

An outside picture of a school on a snowy day in Winnipeg. We can see a rowdy class yelling loudly in Farsi through one of the windows. A guy walks into the classroom with two pieces of luggage. It is clear that their actions have disappointed him. “Can’t they at least play around in French?” he asks the students.

One student, Negin (Rojina Esmaeili), and her elder sister, Nazgol (Saba Vahedyousefi), discover money covered in ice while making their way home through a wintry labyrinth. Another thread has Massoud (Nemati), a Winnipeg tour guide, pointing out to visitors a bench and the famous unattended suitcase that has been maintained on top of it, which is said to be a UNESCO historical monument; A third narrative follows director Matthew Rankin, a deceased Montréal bureaucrat, as he visits his sick mother at home.

A crooning turkey-store owner, a “lachrymologist” who distributes tissues at a cat funeral, a man by himself in a run-down mall, turkeys wandering the streets and taking up bus seats, and a woman complaining to the driver that she has endured too much in life to have to sit next to poultry are all examples of the absurdists’ reality.

In a parallel universe where French and Farsi are the primary languages, Universal Language exists. In essence, the movie covers the tales of many individuals. The only other employee at the government office in Montreal where we initially discover Matthew is a guy who is crying in his cubicle. Matthew quits his work and returns to Winnipeg, his birthplace, via bus. A fellow traveler informs him, “Winnipeg is a strange destination for tourists,” when he tells them where he is headed.

Reading Universal Language is difficult. It causes you to think in a variety of ways. “It is an expression of… idealistic longing in a binary, rigid age,” according to Rankin. A tone of melancholy permeates Universal Language. The movie attempts to steer its thoughts away from nationalism and toward pluralistic universalism. It’s challenging to watch because of Universal Language’s complex and inexplicable background. But in this universe that transcends language and conventional imagery, its poetry keeps you spellbound. The Red Lorry film festival package included a preview of this movie.