Universal Language (2024)

Brilliant. Relentless in its depiction of Winnipeg as a hostile and inhospitable liminal place where every good thing is perpetually delayed. You see shot after shot of blocky anonymous buildings, passages crossfading into walls, borderlines. Highways, hallways, temporary office cubicles, parking garages, the three named districts (Beige, Brown, and Grey), the mind-numbing industries of pride (Kleenex, cold storage, turkey meat). Disorienting close-ups. It's all foreboding and absurd. Then at last, the gut-punch: you see an actual house, first from the outside, then the inside, all warmth and softness, a happy hazy blur, “normal” twisted into “eerie”. At the end of the day, every silver lining has its cloud. We are all cosmically connected in ways that are impossible to fully qualify.