THE VISITOR

Immediately after 9-11, I said to someone: we will never be the same in our country and all are effected who have anything to do with us. I didn't realize at the time how prophetic my statement would be. Truly, life has never been the same. And, the terrorists probably accomplished much more than they even imagined.

I just saw a movie, The Visitor and, nothing that I have seen in a long time illustrates how much life for us has changed. A good story but a very sad one. Without giving away the plot, a widower, college prof and all around depressed guy, Walter Vale, is forced to go to the Big Apple to present a paper to a conference. Reluctantly, he travels from his college in Connecticut to his old apartment that he has kept. We are never really told why but assume that somehow it has remained a shrine to his deceased wife who was a pianist--quite good, maybe even a concert pianist. In fact, the story opens with Walter on his fourth piano teacher attempting to learn to play himself. He does not have the talent for it according to his very kind teacher.

At his old apartment, he discovers two people living in it. Without fanfare, they leave: a Senegalese, I think, and Tarek, a Syrian, who are lovers. Walter is played by Richard Jenkins who is perfect for the part. He is more understated than William Hurt if that is possible. He is excellent, so hesitant that one wonders how he navigates anything. So often during the movie, I wanted to finish his sentences. He was excellent and an unlikely candidate to learn to play Tarek's bongos. In a turn of events, the somewhat simple story gets very complicated. Tarek gets arrested on a bogus charge and is incarcerated in a warehouse of a jail; it is suddenly 9-11 and nothing is simple anymore. He is an alien, dark skinned, has no rights, something that Walter can hardly believe. Tarek's mother shows up and Walter befriends her. They start a very sweet relationship where the mysteries of every body's stories are imagined as well as real.

This is a wonderful movie where the implied thing is "what has happened to us?" Help. We have gone from a country where opportunity and promise are the bread of life to a country where suspicion is more the rule than the exception. Help.

In this movie, it doesn't all turn out right. The message is one where the innocent gets caught up in circumstances where before 9-11 would matter little but now, drives an entire segment of the population into a system of despair. All the bad symbols are here: the detention center for the suspects, the bureaucracy that is overwhelmed by sheer numbers and aren't paid to be even civil. And, then's there's the dismay from those of us who can't believe that we have come to this.

I had several overwhelming thoughts when I sat in the movie watching the ending credits, (1) we absolutely must get these people who are running our country OUT: they must go and if they don't, not only is it more of the same but those cherished ideals about us will be more and more dust. The second one had to do with the terrible toll it is taking on those at the lower levels who are the door keepers of the prisons like the one in this story or GitMo. Check out a movie like Standard Operating Procedure which is about Abu Ghraib prison and the atrocities and those who perpetrated them just to get an idea of what happens. And, a last one (3)which may even be the main reality: with all this time since 9-11, two wars, 4000 plus young Americans gone forever--think about it, all the books written which have reinforced the above thoughts; the movies like The Visitor, Rendition, Lambs and Lions, The Valley of Elah, scores of others which have pointed out how we have changed and moved away from American ideals--with all the books and the movies, nothing has really changed. Americans are still dying, spin is rampant and denial is a constant--nothing has changed as I see it.

While those like myself are sometimes accused of finding no good in our fight since 9-11, I plead innocent as it was only with the colossal mismanagement of the Iraqi war that I became a skeptic or worse. And, movies like The Visitor make me know we are no longer what we were and this is sad.