The Unseen Movie Review

The Terminal

Iranian refugee Merhan Nasseri arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1988 having been refused entry to the UK and having all his documentation stolen. He was left unable to prove his identity and forced to live within the terminal, where he has remained ever since. Here his story has been given the Hollywood treatment.

Nasseri becomes Viktor Navorski, played by Spielberg favourite Tom Hanks. Rather than be an Iranian political refugee – perhaps a touchy subject in the US these days – the character is from a fictional eastern European country Krakozia, ravaged by war. Rather than have his documents stolen, his country simply ceases to exist, leaving him in a diplomatic, rather than bureaucratic, limbo. He’s given a love-interest in Catherine Zeta Jones’ glamorous flight attendant. And, naturally enough, rather than set the film in France – also perhaps a touchy subject for the US these days – the story is relocated to America.

This all makes a certain amount of sense. The real-life airport-dwelling Nasseri is, by all accounts, a bit of a nutter. He could have left Charles De Gaulle five years ago when the French authorities granted him a residency visa, but refused to sign the papers and started refusing to answer anyone who didn’t address him as “Sir Alfred Merhan”.

The Spielberg/Hanks sentimental and sympathetic treatment certainly makes for a more interesting tale. Even if the weirdness of reality is somewhat diminished, the “based on a true story” get-out will ensure that most cinemagoers will think this IS the true story. The only slight trouble is the inherent lack of believability in the idea that an American airport would happily let a gentleman of Middle Eastern descent wander around the place unsupervised. But then, this is a Spielberg film, and it’s the emotion that’s the key.

Now most people would play being trapped at an airport as precisely that – a confinement; not Spielberg. Perhaps taking his cue from the man the story is based on who refuses to leave even now that he can, under this director the airport becomes a place of freedom and hope – a home after the real home has gone.

It may sound like a tough one to buy into for anyone who has spent even a couple of hours knocking around Heathrow waiting for a flight, but let us not forget that Spielberg remains a master filmmaker and Hanks an effortless actor. It somehow works.

What could, from the story on which it is based, so easily have ended up a depressing tale of isolation, loneliness and encroaching madness with an added touch of heavy-handed political polemicism ends up instead a feel-good and heartwarming tale of triumph over adversity and the indomitability of the human spirit. It is, as with so many Spielberg and indeed Hanks films, a movie that you can’t help but become caught up in. Let the warmth and cuddliness sweep you away, and come to look on airports in a different light.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM