Señor Juan

“Dirty Pretty Things” presents a group of very different immigrant characters living in London.

Already, it is easy to deduce that organ trafficking (led by Señor Juan) is going to be a central part of the movie plot.

As such, I would like to focus my last blog post on the very antagonistic and intriguing character of the hotel manager.

From what we have watched, Señor Juan could be seen as a metaphor for a society that does not acknowledge the humanity of illegal immigrants/ illegal refugees and is capable of exploiting them at whim.

This can be clearly witnessed during the scene in which Okwe brings a human heart to Señor Juan so that he might speak to the authorities about it. However, the hotel manager instead ridicules Okwe and then taunts him with the phone, as the Nigerian man is unable to report his findings to the police out of fear he might be discovered as an illegal alien.

In a similar manner, it could be said that society ignores outsiders until a problem arises, at which point the isolated individuals might be blamed or manipulated, since they are powerless.

Yet another way in which Señor Juan could be perceived as more than a simple, cruel villain in the film is through his dialogue. He mentions that “when the hotel is dirty, we make it pretty again…” alluding to the fact that when there is something wrong within a community, people tend to hide to or address the issue superficially so that society’s perception of civility is not threatened.

NOTE:

Given the fact that we have only watched less than half the movie, I can only hope my thoughts on Señor Juan and his role in “Dirty Pretty Things” aren’t too mistaken.