The Visitor (Opens 11 Dec 2008)
Official website: http://www.festivefilms.com/thevisitor
Director: Tom McCarthy (THE STATION AGENT)
Cast: Richard Jenkins, Haaz Sleimanm, Danei Jekesai Gurira, Hiam Abbass
Running Time: 104 Min
Language: English, French Arabic & Russian with English Subtitles
Rating: NC16 PG - SOME COARSE LANGUAGE
Synopsis
A college professor becomes embroiled in the lives of a young immigrant couple living in New York City and stumbles into an unexpected romance as a result. As these strangers struggle to deal with their individual lives in a changed world, their shared humanity is revealed in awkward, humorous and dramatic ways., MANHATTAN.
This one may be far from blockbuster material but it definitely has a dash of character on its own.
Imho, The Visitor is a subtle story about human connection and its subsequent repercussions.
Recommended for those who enjoyed Babel and Crash. Visitor is less explicit in the message it's sending, alienation lah, cultural acceptance lah so it becomes very hard to pin but me thinks that's the magic. A pretty quaint yet evocative piece of work. A similar, but more humourous approach can be seen in Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know.
Pity many movie goers will miss it because it's only screening on Cinema Europa, Vivocity.
I'll definitely catch this!
to sum up the plot: a small gesture rouses old joe from his fitful sleep.
The law is black and white and without compassion, and as they say, Justice is blind. So I guess either way one could get basically screwed if you end up on the wrong side of the equation. For illegal immigrants, the strict policy we have here is a jail term, plus caning, and deportation. We could argue the merits and demerits of punishment, but that's for a totally different post altogether. How this ties in with the movie, is because it set me thinking a bit about the treatment one could provide should you find yourself in a similar situation as the protagonist Walter (Richard Jenkins).
Continues at http://anutshellreview.blogspot.com/2008/12/visitor.html