Directed by Stephen Frears
Written by Steven Knight
During our week of research, I was able to view a screening of 'Dirty Pretty Things'. The film follows a Nigerian illegal immigrant, Okwe, who works as minicab driver and moonlights as a receptionist in a hotel in London. With no other place to live, he shares a flat with one of the chambermaids from the hotel, Turkish asylum-seeker: Senay.
We learn Okwe is a qualified doctor during a scene in which the manager of the minicab firm requests a "check-up" and presses him to treat a particular venereal disease he has picked up. That night, upon starting his shift at the hotel (in which its seen many immigrants, both legal and illegal, are on the staff) a prostitute comes down from one of the rooms and informs Okwe of a problem with the room that he should look into. Whilst inspecting the room, he finds the toilet is completely blocked and upon attempting to relieve the blockage, finds a human heart had been clogging it.
As Okwe starts to unravel the mystery of the heart, uncovering an illegal operation, harvesting organs from immigrants in return for forged passports, we learn that his boss at the hotel is behind the operation who then in turns attempts to blackmail Okwe into doing the surgery after finding out his history as an illegal immigrant who fled his country after wrongfully being accused of murdering his wife. As things unfold, Okwe and Senay become closer and we learn the truth of these two hidden immigrants as they flee from Immigration Services and try and escape the power the hotel manager now has over them.
From watching this film, I feel an important element in this film is the impact of history on identity and how a personality and life is built upon this identity. It also has a political message of the low quality of life for many immigrants, showing it as dire as immigrants feeling they have no other choice but to sell their organs to form a new identity.
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