‘Visitor’ Invites Inquiry

When asked about the meaning of his new film “The Visitor” at a question-and-answer session following a screening, director Tom McCarthy said, “I’d rather you talk about it. I don’t want to explain the movie or tie things up too neatly.”

This response reflects the subjective nature of the film, in particular its discussion of illegal immigration and deportation in post-9/11 America. McCarthy, however, chooses to present these issues through the personal stories of people who would never have met had it not been for unlikely circumstances.

“The Visitor” charts the story of Walter Vale, a professor at Connecticut College, who is dissatisfied with his work and his life. One weekend he discovers that his neglected apartment in New York City has been taken over by two illegal immigrants: Tarek, a Syrian musician, and his Senegalese wife Zainab. After an initially awkward meeting, Vale warms to the couple and tries to help Tarek when he gets into trouble with immigration officials and ends up in a detention center.

“I started visiting detention centers and was much inspired by things I heard and found out at the centers,” McCarthy said when asked about how he came up with material for the film. “Many of the things that Tarek says were out of the mouths of men I heard there.”

McCarthy said that he tried to penetrate New York’s Arab enclaves to get a feel for the culture and make his film as close to life as possible. “I spent a lot of time hanging with the Arab community in New York City,” he said.

“It’s just like having a good time and hanging out.”

McCarthy’s inspiration and research was not limited to the United States. Tarek was drawn from the author’s own experiences in the Middle East. “I was in the Middle East for a bit; Tarek came out of there,” he said. “I was spending time with different musicians and artists.”

But, just as McCarthy does not wish to interpret his film for anyone, he does not want to explain his characters and their backgrounds in excessive depth either. “I don’t go to that great pains to explain,” he said. “I don’t paint it too clearly.”

McCarthy did, however, have much to say on the topic of deportation and the treatment of detainees, a subject that many members of the audience touched on in the question and answer session.

“We can definitely do better than this as a country,” he said. “It’s inhumane and it’s crazy. They’re sometimes here for five years. I just want to make sure that we as a country understand what’s happening.”

Despite any debates that “The Visitor” has sparked, McCarthy said that he did not necessarily see politics as the priority of his film.

“I don’t think it’s an immigration movie per se—to this day, I don’t think it is one,” he said.

McCarthy was amused by a question concerning internet message boards. One viewer of the screening asked if he ever read commentary on his films online, mentioning that he had seen a posting describing “The Visitor” as “liberal propaganda.”

“Liberal Propaganda!” McCarthy said. “I’m going to read it now! I hope they’ve seen the movie!” The audience laughed in response. Despite the heavy subject matter of the film, McCarthy seemed to move from serious issues, such as immigration, to lighter topics with relative ease.

Whatever the political nuances that viewers may draw from his latest picture, McCarthy sees his film principally as a form of entertainment, which aims to be as gripping as possible.

“My job is to tell a good story and have people disappear into a movie for one and a half hours—but its nice to have people rally around it.”