Movie "the Visitor"

I'd like to write about a movie which I watched yesterday.







The Visitor is a 2008 drama film starring Richard Jenkins. It was written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, who is known for his directorial debut The Station Agent. Jenkins plays Walter Vale, a Connecticut College economics professor who befriends a young couple who have been squatting in his New York City apartment. Vale visits New York City infrequently, and is in town for an academic conference. The young unmarried couple, Tarek, a Syrian djembe player, and Zainab, a Senegalese jewelry-maker, are both illegal immigrants. Vale's depression is somewhat lifted by Tarek's drum lessons. After Tarek is arrested at a subway station by the police, he is transferred to a detention center for illegal immigrants. Vale attempts to prevent the young musician's deportation from the United States, paying for an immigration lawyer. Tarek's mother Mouna, whose journalist husband died following a lengthy politically-motivated imprisonment in Syria, arrives from her home in Michigan, and ends up also staying in Vale's apartment. Mouna, also in the States illegally, and Vale develop a friendship, which is abruptly terminated when Tarek is summarily deported. [Wikipedia English "The Visitor"]


This is not a movie that brings up illegal immigration issues for the main subject, but it would be hard to understand if this movie was played in Japan, because we cannot realize how the immigrant problem is big, also common and natural here, in the United States.

The young guy from Syria was arrested in a subway station in New York City by a misunderstanding that he didn't pay the fare.
When Walter Vale said to the guy's girlfriend
"He should be released soon, he didn't do anything wrong",
the woman from Senegal said
"We are illegal. We are not citizens."

Vale's expression looked as if he was surprised a little, like he didn't notice they were immigrants and illegal immigrants should be arrested.


I feel "citizen" is not just a word in the United States.
It seems contain something stronger...like a feeling, power, or dream...inside.
I remembered there were two gates for arrival passengers when I landed in LAX airport : for "citizens" and for "visitors".
I think the title of this movie means "people who are not citizens."

Walter Vale, a bored old American guy, was getting passions through his relationships with visitors and music.

The Syrian guy just wanted to play music in America.
He was not a terrorist.
But he was treated as a vicious criminal in a prison, even deported to Syria.

"I am not a criminal.
I have committed no crime.
What do they think?
I'm a terrorist?
There are no terrorists in here.
The terrorists have money. They have support.
This is just not fair."

Music has no border.
However, the border blocks music sometimes.




























Also, I was touched by the scenes of New York City.
The prison was in Queens, where I was born.
Of course I don't remember what the place looked like.
It was my very first time to see Queens.