Actor Haaz Sleiman, a Detroit native and co-star of “The Visitor,” after a screening of the film in Bloomfield Hills on April 7. Photo: Khalil AlHajal
 

A new semi-mainstream movie in theaters this weekend kills two giant birds with one stone, countering decades of negative imagery associated with Arabs in American films, while addressing one of the most pressing political issues in the country.

In “The Visitor,” a bland, disenchanted academic, Walter Vale (played by Richard Jenkins), strikes up a friendship with young Arab American musician Tarek Khalil (played by Detroit native Haaz Sleiman) in New York. Their bond strengthens through music until Tarek is arrested and detained as an undocumented immigrant.

Walter struggles to help, in the process forging an even deeper bond with Tarek’s devastated mother Mouna (Hiam Abbass).

At an advance screening of the film earlier in the month, Sarah Bazzi, 22, a communications student from Dearborn Heights, said she planned to call all of her friends about seeing  the movie.

“It creates a sense of awareness. We have to support this film,” she said.

Bazzi said seeing Arab American characters depicted deeply and accurately means a lot to a community used to being short-changed.

“It was an organic sort of portrayal,” she said.

Sandy Bower, a non-Arab Republican business owner from Clinton Township described the movie as awesome.

She said she’s always been aware of the issue of undocumented immigrants, but that usually, “You don’t really see it on a personal level.”

“They should make the legal process make more sense so people don’t have to come here illegally out of desperation,” she said. “The politics of it is so messed up.”

Writer-director of “The Vistor” Tom McCarthy (R) with actors Haaz Sleiman and Richard Jenkins on set.

In an interview with The Arab American News, writer-director of “The Vistor” Tom McCarthy talked about what inspired him to create the film and what it means to him to have audiences respond to it positively and proactively.

TAAN: “The Visitor” is one of a few recent movies that have offered likable, human portrayals of Arabs and Arab Americans, after a long history of violent, sleazy and dim-witted Arab characters in American films. For many of us, it’s like we’re seeing ourselves on the big screen for the first time. How do you feel about that and were you conscious of having that kind of impact as you were writing or while you were directing the film?

TM: Yeah, I think so, because honestly that character of Tarek was one of the first ideas I had for the movie. I went to Beirut. I spent some time in Beirut when the State Department sent me with my first movie “The Station Agent.” They have this outreach program and they send directors and films abroad and they sent me to Lebanon. And I went back subsequently. I made a lot of friends there. I went back and was just having a great time and it was during that period that I started to think ‘Wow, I haven’t seen these kinds of characters represented before. I haven’t seen all these great people I’m meeting.’  So really that’s where Tarek began – the character of Tarek. And once I decided I wanted to do it, I was like, you know, I really wanted to get it right.

So I spent a lot of time just paying attention, reading a lot, talking to a lot of people, spending a lot of time in the Arab community in New York.

And it’s very important to me that – say it screens in Dearborn for a large Arab audience – that people feel like they’re well represented and feel like it’s fair and feel like it’s honest and feel like it’s, mostly, authentic. So when I hear that, I get very excited about it.

TAAN: There are some real distinct Arab American idiosyncrasies that come out in the film – the way that the Arab characters act, they’re mannerisms. Is that something you were trying to do or did that just come out from the actors?

TM: It’s the way I work, you know, I cast my actors and I spend a lot of time in rehearsal talking about it and constantly searching for ‘Okay, what else can we do to make this more nuanced, to make it real?’ Like ‘What can we draw on from your family?’ We talked a lot about eating. I noticed when I was in Beirut, everything was about eating. You know, ‘Let’s have a meal. Let’s have more.’ You know it’s that very sort of generous, inclusive spirit that I was finding in the Arab community that Haaz and I talked a lot about.

TAAN: The character Tarek, even when he’s in detention, he always has a smile on his face and keeps an upbeat mood. Was that intentional, maybe meant to represent a certain Arab trait or spirit?

TM: Yeah I think that’s something we went for, to try to keep this guy – he’s a strong guy in many ways, he went through a lot, losing his father, moving from Syria to Michigan, and he’s smart enough to pick up and go to New York by himself. This is a guy who knows how to take care of himself. And a big part of that is his spirit, you know. So I think it was, for me, the tragedy was slowly seeing that spirit crumble in confinement. That comes from visiting a lot of people in these detention centers and seeing these, like, really wonderful people just, after a while, start to go crazy because it’s such a dehumanizing place.

TAAN: Was the issue of undocumented immigrants something you had in mind when you started writing the screenplay or did that come up as you were exploring the characters?

TM: I think it started with the characters. And then as I started really working on it more and more, I started reading more and more about these detention centers. And the first time I visited one of them I was like ‘Oh my God.’ I just had an emotional reaction to it. And I was like ‘Ok, I have to write about this now.  It’s too powerful.’  And not only was it just an emotional element but it was also, quite honestly, I knew nothing about these places before I visited. So I thought, you know, with stories, you’re always trying to show new worlds, new things, not only new cultures and new people, but also new parts of our culture that we don’t know about.  And I felt like those detention centers represented that.

TAAN:  How many detention centers did you visit?

TM: There were two I visited, and one prison. One was in Queens. It’s now closed. The other one I spent a lot of time visiting was in Elizabeth, New Jersey. And then the final one was a prison in the Newark area. Sometimes they use federal prisons, when they don’t have room or they need more room, and they put people in there so I visited one of those also.

TAAN:  In one particularly intense moment in the film, the character Mouna says “This feels like Syria.”  That’s a real feeling that many Arab Americans have had in recent years. Having left their homeland expecting better things in America, they sometimes find that their rights still aren’t being protected, or that they’re having to navigate through an exasperating bureaucratic mess with immigration and the Homeland Security Department. What were you thinking about when you wrote that? How did you know that we feel that way sometimes?

TM: You know, I think that came out of just talking with people from a lot of different countries and a lot of different cultures, and realizing that many times, it’s not the people that create these divides, it’s the government. It’s bureaucracy. And to that end, I think there’s a moment that we’ve all hit where you realize that it’s like things just are so out of our control. And I think it’s a common frustration and it’s a common anxiety and it’s a common even fear that we all share. It’s like ‘Do we have any control? Do we control our fate at all?’  When she says that line, I’ve had some people say to me – Americans – ‘Come on, you can’t compare the two countries.’  I’m not comparing the two countries. She’s not comparing the two countries. She’s comparing a very distinct feeling that we all feel – that powerlessness.You know, it’s that feeling. It’s that feeling of not knowing. Of being uninformed, and it’s the same here. We have that a lot. You feel like you’re screaming in the wind a little bit.

TAAN:  Some people don’t see the value in putting a human face to the problem the way that this film does. What do you say to people who insist that undocumented immigrants are breaking the law and that they deserve what they go through?

TM: It’s funny, when I encounter that, sometimes I wonder what drives people. Because if all they can do is look at a guy and look at a family, in terms of the story, that’s going through that kind of suffering, and say ‘Oh, well he deserved it,’  then there’s nothing I can say to those people. They’re so locked down. They’re so blocked that like nothing I’m going to say is going to make it seem right. It’s almost sad for me that that’s emotionally their response to the movie, because I’m like ‘wow.’  That doesn’t show a lot of empathy. Did they do something wrong? Yes. Of course. But I think the question is, wrong or right, should they be here or not? I think what the film really raises is, ‘Ok, in this situation, when we have many, many, many undocumented citizens in this country, how are we handling them, how are we treating it?  And can we do it better?’ And I think I’m much more concerned with that than anything else with this film right now. I’m not out to say ‘Immigration policy is wrong, blah, blah, blah.’  I’m just sort of more thinking, ‘Alright look, it’s a very tricky matter, people do come here illegally, we have to find a way to deal with it. But can we do better than this?’ That’s all I’m posing.

TAAN: After one of the advance screenings in the Detroit area, some activists in the audience started rallying the others about writing their congress people and being vocal about immigrants’ rights and presenting different ways they can be active. How does that make you feel, knowing that the movie sparked that kind of reaction?

TM: That gets me excited, you know. I’m a politically minded guy. I have my opinions on it. Many of them aren’t even represented in the movie. But you know also, part of this whole idea – financing for this film came from Participant Films. You’ll see at the end. There’s a web link (www.takepart.com) and you can go there and there’s all ways to get involved, to learn more. I think that’s totally cool. First and foremost, my job is telling a story that moves an audience. And if that moves an audience to cry or laugh or talk about politics or think about family, or think about their neighbor, or think about a guy who works for them, then I’ve done my job. So, you know, I think everything else, all the other collateral conversation is great. It shows that the movie’s sparking interest on some level and I take it as a compliment.

“The Visitor” is now playing at the Landmark Maple Art Theater in Bloomfield Hills and at the AMC Star Fairlane at Fairlane Mall in Dearborn.