The Terminal (2004)
Though I can’t quite bring myself to add this to the film page (due primarily to quality issues) this Spielberg film deserves at least a mention. Left and Right are in agreement on the virtues of being a citizen, whether forking over our money for redistribution or sending our children off to glorious wars all right-thinking people are agreed that it is as subjects of political collectives that we find our deepest meaning. In this film Tom Hanks plays Viktor Navorski, a native of the fictitious Slavic country Krakozhia who finds himself stuck at the JFK airport when a military coup takes place in his home country. “Belonging” to neither his home government, which no longer exists, nor to the U.S. government he has fallen into a “crack” in the bureaucratic system. As the film progresses, he shows himself to be a hard and skilled worker and an honest man but despite winning the approval and support of many private individuals the system will not allow him to take up a normal life since he is not a citizen.
If the film hadn’t painted a heartless enough picture of the state with the plight of the central character already, a minor character (Gupta) explains that he has been in exile from his home country for decades because of resisting the depredations of a tax collector who was driving him into hopeless poverty. Though the film falls well short of being a classic, the surprising anti-state themes make this pleasant and funny film worth a rental. Rated PG-13 for mild profanity. See this review.
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Let’s not forget the head security bureaucrat’s schemes to entice Victor to leave the airport illegally, thus pushing him outside of his jurisdiction and making him someone else’s problem. And how he wishes to secure at all cost the promotion he has been expecting by hiding Victor from his overlords.
Wow, I hadn’t really picked up on the obvious anti-state elements of the film. Thanks for pointing it out. The scene with the immigrant being told he couldn’t bring his medicine into the country, and subsequently being rescued by Navorski by telling the authorities it was for a goat, was awesome. Exposing loopholes and circumventing the system any way you can. Hooray!
Speaking of movies, I’m curious to what readers here think of “V for Vendetta,” the movie release of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel.
This is just too close to the reality of many of my friends dealings with the US government to be an entertaintment…
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