Universal Language آواز بوقلمون
★★★★★ [Comedy] 89 minutes ‧ 2025
It may feel understandably challenging to imagine Danny DeVito and Abbas Kiarostami side by side.
I won't promote any speculation. But I sometimes wonder if Kiarostami ever watched Matilda. I think it would have gone over well.
A young protagonist trudges forward amidst a swirling sea of domineering adults, all impossible to pacify or otherwise reason with. Unfairness is a given. The world is openly and shamelessly against you and all you want to accomplish. Yet, you keep finding special people who sync with your own natural kindness, who want to aid your journey.
The viewer gets to witness the beauty of an unexpected miracle. Forged not just through individual tenacity, but with the support and love of others. Our hearts tense as we observe that (often long exhausted) childhood strain of steady persistence. The character's movement forward relies on a hopefulness which can only be born of the truest innocence: believing you might have a shot.
This is a story which reflects onto the viewer both the lasting wounds and transformative potential of our connections to children. School life and family being the most obvious arenas.
Am I talking about Matilda? Or Where is the Friend's Home? Or Homework? Or Case 1 Case 2? Or First Graders?
In Universal Language, the arena expands to include adults in the pain. Though surely, it could be argued that they were always there. Are we not still often powerless and beholden to merciless authority figures and structures?
Kiarostami's matryoshka nods to the child within the adult viewer. The adult viewer is prompted to unearth their own past injustices as well reflect on their current power and responsibility to the new youth. Unlike many of Kiarostami's child focused films, Universal Language more explicitly portrays that both the children and adults are mutually screwed.
In one scene we see a faceless office worker sobbing violently in their cubicle. A few feet away the [boss] is casually having a conversation with [character] as he resigns; the boss pleads with him to tell others his work experience there was either immensely positive or neutral. Puncturing a symphony of wailing in the background, [character] responds that it has been the most "neutral" job he has ever had.
This situation's mood echoes the opening scene of classroom scolding, a feature of both Universal Language and Where is the Friend's Home. It is remarkable in the former that the children hold their composure while the office worker simply deteriorates. You can hold it to a point. In Where is the Friend's Home tears fly freely from the scolded child, but it can be inferred that the other children dutifully suppress their own. Even in UL's adult parallel, [character] must politely suppress his own feeling for the sake of maintaining an expected etiquette. Even as the man in the cubicle beside him thrashes and falls apart.
UL retains an absurd playfulness throughout, making sure we don't get too deeply caught up in heartbreak without something to smile about on the side. I don't know if a child could watch it, but as someone who was formerly a child I very much appreciate it. As someone who is now an adult, I also appreciate it. Just as cities, eras, and stories are blurred throughout the film--we are shown pains, joys, uncertainties, and triumphs that reveal themselves to be ageless.