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Film Retrospective

Comments on our September feature -
The Visitor

Can the cops really just "round up the usual suspects" like they did with Tarek in the movie?  
-- Gordo41

Welcome to the Land of the Free, Gordo.  The Melting Pot of the world.  For further confirmation, check out this sad - but true - news article which echoes the movie all too tragically. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/nyregion/13detain.html.
-- AC

Does anybody know what CD Tarek gives Walter to listen to? He ended up playing it in his house in CT.
-- TamborEx

The CD was "Open & Close" by Fela Kuti.  You can find it on Amazon.com at this link -- http://www.amazon.com/Open-Close-Afrodisiac-Fela-Kuti/dp/B000A2H75O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1222621447&sr=8-1
-- Allison

Fela Kuti was a fascinating man and a very talented musician.  It was great to see him get some exposure in the film.  Check out his Wikipedia entry ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fela_Kuti
-- DjembeMan

I saw this based on the strength of "The Station Agent", which I thought was great. But where that movie was driven by its quirky characters, "The Visitor" is populated by flat stereotypes that exist solely to lay out the author's muddled statement about humanity or bureaucracy or post-9/11 America or something along those lines. It's more of a lecture than a drama, cheaply manipulative with creaky formulas, and completely predictable. I guess Thomas McCarthy has nothing more to say, so he decided to educate us instead. Too bad; I really had hoped for something better.
-- TalkingHorse

Totally impressive. I mean, the movie seemed to be going no-where, but it got a few giggles out of me. It seemed to be making some generalized and uninteresting statements about racial diversity that will only enlighten the very obtuse. But it had an old white guy playing a street drum like a black man, so I chuckled a bit, and hoped to actually start caring about the characters to some degree.
But then, right smack dab in the center of the movie, it unexpectedly turns into a big heaping bowl of liberal propaganda about illegal immigrants and the heartless organism that is the U.S. of A!
Wow! Where the Hell did that come from?
I had the rare pleasure to be able to see this movie without knowing ANYTHING about it. To bad that pleasure had to be squashed by depictions of state agents that don't care about human beings, and an all-too-literal rant from a formerly-apathetic 'enlightened' white man.
Yeah, yeah... he just wanted to play his drums and live life and spread love. What's so wrong with that baby? Well, it's really easy to point to a fictitious depiction DESIGNED to illustrate a specific point-of-view, and somehow exemplify that MADE-UP scenario as 'typical' and 'eye-opening'.
I don't mind movies that have a certain point-of-view, even when they differ from my own, even when they are unexpected. But when it's as blatant and subversive as The Visitor was, I'm not going to judge it as a film, I'm going to judge it by the political AGENDA that is very obviously being shoved down my throat. In that respect, I don't think it's a loony-tunes position that we can all make music and live together and be hippies and blah blah blah PER SE....
But my problem with liberal (sorry for the generalized term) view-points, isn't that they have a thought-line that is irrational, it's that I rarely see suggestions for practical alternatives. Do we degrade the standards by which we allow people to move here? Are we to let anyone and everyone through our boarders? Do we destroy this illusion of 'boarders' and let free roaming reign? Screw security, assume the best in all men and trust your brothers and sisters? All rights and benefits, like welfare, are open and flowing the moment you step off the boat? Are you really so short-sighted to think any of these are practical and viable solutions? For most people, they know these are not options, and that's way they aren't seriously suggested. But I don't hear any truly, usable suggestions, really. And that's my point.
But let's pretend for a moment that Tarek was a real person and his case an actual event. Would I care if he spent his days playing the drums in the street, though he was here illegally? Not really, it wouldn't bother me much. Stay out of trouble and pay your taxes.
But if he gets caught and deported? I'm not going to cry.
-- NinjaGai

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