Foreign Tongue

What does it mean to speak with a foreign tongue?

This is essentially the question at the heart of Boris Mojsovski’s new film, which premiered this week at Oldenburg Film Festival. Set in Canada and based upon a musical stage play written by Cynthia Ashperger (who appears in the film), it tells the story of a woman who, after a significant head injury and subsequent stroke and coma, wakes to find that her natural Canadian accent is gone and she now speaks with a thick Bosnian one. Using the very real but rare medical condition of foreign accent syndrome as its basis, with a sprinkling of magical realism thrown in, Foreign Tongue operates in the tradition of a romantic comedy, but is ultimately a deeply moving drama about gaining insight into what life is like for immigrants seeking to fit in.

Before Kathy (Kimberly-Sue Murray) has her unfortunate accident, she is a disillusioned recruitment consultant with a nice home, a penchant for expensive red wine, a love of Carl Jung and a fairly lonely life. Encouraged onto a dating site by her sister, she records a video describing herself: “I like music,… and silence,… and avoiding people.” Alas, opposing her true nature she agrees to go to a fancy dress speed-dating night and, after one to many tipples, trips and hits her head on a table. When she awakes in the hospital, the doctor is confused by her Canadian-sounding name given she now speaks with a significant accent.

This is, of course, terrifying for Kathy and the possibility that her foreign accent syndrome may be permanent presents a significant upset to her life. When she takes the plunge to go on her first date after the change – with “boring pretentious Henry” – he’s so rude about her accent that she immediately leaves. Luckily, she finds solace in Visnja (Ashperger) a Bosnian immigrant who was a janitor at the hospital and comforted Kathy in her hour of need. Now, she offers to introduce her to her friendship circle, where she pretends to be Irina, a fellow Bosnian immigrant, and becomes friends with fellow immigrants as well as the dashing and kind David (Steve Byers).

It’s effectively a classic rom-com setup. Kathy lies about how she is and grows closer to David, all the while having the possibility of her true accent returning and ruining this new life she seems to be finding a home in. However, while this central conceit acts as a helpful anchor, the true joy of Foreign Tongue is the exposure that Kathy gets to the real trials that her ‘fellow’ immigrants have been through and the traditions that they have brought with them from around the world. She find herself preparing coffee like someone from Sarajevo, with an extra cup in case a guest arrives (and they always do!), she attends accent reduction classes and comes to understand the additional hurdle placed in front of even the most highly educated immigrants. In two of the most affecting scenes, Faroukh (Cas Anvar) describes going from being a renowned engineer in Iran to needing five years of re-education for an entry-level position in Canada, while former actress Visnja is rejected for a role despite a breathtaking audition.

All the while, Kathy is on her own journey, accompanied by a recurring painterly dreamscape in which Carl Jung (Greg Bryk) dispenses mis-attributed pearls of wisdom. Kathy is reading about the Jungian concept of synchronicity before her accident and both she and Visnja begin to believe that her accident unlocked something – perhaps the echoes of a past life – rather than it being merely a fallacy. Perhaps that is just wishful thinking. Either way, Kathy finds herself falling in love with David, despite him not knowing her real name, and finding genuine fellowship among this group of people she likely never would have befriended otherwise.

Her time submerged in this world is full of humour and pathos. She frequents a Bosnian cafe with two straight-talking waiters whose asides to one another – particularly their dismay that anyone would pretend to be Bosnian – are hilarious, and Murray in particular is expert as the leading lady, walking the tightrope between humour and sentiment perfectly. It helps that she manages to pull off the accent very well, a symptom perhaps of having had to lose an accent herself, but also the various cast and crew members from the Balkans around her.

In many ways, beyond its central storyline, Foreign Tongue is a love letter to the immigrant experience. It is a testament to the hardship of trying to adjust and carve out a life somewhere that you don’t speak the language and, even once you do, you are marked by your voice. It is a testament also to the communities that spring up in such scenarios, to the traditions that people carry with them, and to the memory and history of the old world – wherever that may be for you. All of that is tied together by a genuinely compelling central story and winning protagonist who takes the audience along on a misty-eyed ride.

Director: Boris Mojsovski
Screenplay: Cynthia Ashperger, Boris Mojsovski
Cast: Kimberly-Sue Murray, Steve Byers, Cynthis Ashperger, Janet Porter, Cas Anvar, Rachel Ancheril, Greg Bryk
Producers: Munire Armstrong, Felipe Rodriguez
Cinematography: Fraser Brown
Editing: Julia Blua
Music: Marcel Castillo
Sound: David Ottier
Costume design: Alisha Robinson
Production companies: YN Films, A Thousand Lights Dark (Canada)
Venue: Oldenburg Film Festival (International)
In English, Bosnian
104 minutes

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