FINAL POST

When were first told that we were to watch “Dirty Pretty Things” in class, I assumed that this was a movie rendition of the novel “What We All Long For”. I was definitely mistaken. At the same time, these two forms of media are highly similar in theme and message.

While I realize that we are only partially into “Dirty Pretty Things” I believe that I have a very good understanding of the film already. Director Stephen Frears masterfully presents key themes of the film very early on in the actual viewing.

I will discuss one of the key themes I have already seen in the film. Then I will discuss how this theme relates to the novel “What We All Long For”.

Perhaps the biggest theme I have thus far seen in the film is the idea of invisibility. This theme is most obvious while in the Baltic Hotel. Not once, so far, have we seen a customer or a hotel patron enter or leave the hotel. It is only the workers who seem to be actually in the hotel. This may be symbolizing that what is happening in the hotel, between the workers, is the only thing that matters in the plot of the film. More likely, however, is that this symbolizes how the workers themselves are actually the invisible ones. They are the ones always in the background, whom the hotel patrons don’t see. And yet, these invisible workers are the ones dealing with huge moral issues (like finding a human heart).

This parallels the same kind of them in “What We All Long For”. In highschool, the group of kids that the novel follows were always the outcast — maybe the invisible ones. This continued onto adulthood where they live in very sketchy building, and no one visits them except each other and maybe Tuyen’s brother (not happily though). When Carla is riding her bike for her job, she is also completely invisible to the world around her. She observes all the time, like when she goes to her mother’s old house, but it never mentions how someone ever observes that she is there.

Perhaps this idea of invisibility is a common theme in immigration. These people just want to fit in in their new society, and they deem the best way of doing that is to blend into the background. I find this ironic, however, especially in countries such as Canada and the United States. Living in both these places, I can easily say that as a society at large, both countries celebrate individualism. They celebrate making yourself known among a sea of people, being the most flamboyant flamingo in the flock. And yet, those people coming into these countries feel pressured to blend in, to become invisible.

I hope to see this theme of invisibility further developed within the film.