The Visitor / Ghost Trains
Walter Vale (Richard Jenkins, “Six Feet Under”), a widower of five years, lives an aimless life as a college economics professor in suburban Connecticut. When Walter reluctantly agrees to fill in for a colleague at a conference in New York City he discovers a young couple, Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Zainab (Danai Gurira), have been scammed into illegally renting his vacant flat. Walter agrees to let them stay until they find a place of their own. However when an interaction with the police lands Tarek, an undocumented New Yorker, in an ICE detention centre, Walter emerges as the only person able to visit Tarek. When Tarek’s mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass) appears in search of her son, Walter’s emotional commitment in Tarek’s case is sealed. As the four people struggle to deal with the stark realities of the US immigration system and their own individual lives, their shared humanity is revealed in awkward, humorous and dramatic ways.
2007 – Certificate 15 – USA
Rating Details: Infrequent strong language
8.5 out of 10
In the last two days I’ve had the same, unnerving and surreal experience, twice; once last night and once this morning. I’ve travelled on two trains and each time had a whole carriage to myself. (I’ve seen plenty of films where people travel on empty trains and they never end well.) Last night I could sort of understand; who wants to go from Oxford to London at seven minutes past midnight on a miserable, Monday evening? (I’d been at a Stranglers gig; amazing band.) But today I was going from Reading to Winchester at just gone midday. I was really quite surprised (although relieved) to reach my destinations and not be accosted by a psychotic killer or two, or the undead, or some zombies; it was quite disappointing really. There is something uniquely creepy about being on what feels like an empty train at night; you can’t see anyone, you can’t see anything out of the windows, you’re just in this metal tube that’s rumbling through the darkness like an out of control monster-thing. It’s a bit of a tenuous link, but the last scene in this film takes place in a train station.
This is a great film. It’s really well written, filmed and acted. It makes a point (about the immigration system in the USA). It has characters that don’t feel like they were cut out of the back of a cereal packet. The interaction in it between people who, on the surface have little in common, is top stuff. Despite their ‘illegal’ status, it’s hard not to feel sorry for Tarak and Zainab; in fact I can’t imagine anyone with any shred of humanity not sympathising with their situation. Tarak is also Syrian, which give the film an extra poignancy at the moment, although it was made just before the civil war there started. He comes across as a decent, nice person, a little reminder that most people there are just like the rest of us. (At this point I started going on about Syria, politicians and diplomats, but when I read it back to myself it sound like total shite, so I deleted it; yes, it really was that bad.) Anyway, yes, this film. It was written and directed by Thomas McCarthy, who also wrote and directed “The Station Agent”, probably one of the best ten movies ever made. “The Visitor” isn’t as good at that, but it’s still pretty awesome. Watch.
This is another of those films where the music is almost a character in it. I love them. A lot of the ‘action’ revolves around Tarak teaching Walter how to play the djembe.
No cats, decapitation or chainsaws.
Recommended for the living. Plenty of emotional ups and downs, so maybe not so good if you tend to throw up on rollercoasters.
Top badass moment? When it comes to doing new things, I’ll be the first to admit I’m a coward. My comfort zone is very well-defined and heavily defended by some serious, state of the art hardware. Seeing Walter join the drumming circle in the park is most definitely badass.
Penny's Gallery
Saving the Planet – July 2010
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