Dirty Pretty Things tells the story of Senay and her
friend and co-worker Okwe, and their grim existence as
illegal immigrants in London. Senay works as a maid in
a large fictional hotel, and Okwe (who needs no sleep)
spends his time between working as a night-porter in
said hotel, and as a mini-cab driver looking for
vulnerable customers who in his words have been 'let
down by the system'.
Their friendship gets them into
trouble, both with immigration and their employers,
and Senay, who has come to England for a dream life,
starts work in a factory, where she herself becomes
the vulnerable 'customer'.
This British-funded film, directed by Stephen Frears
(he of My Beautiful Laundrette and a personal
favourite of mine: The Van), is rather unkind to the
British. Firstly, London is painted as a terrible
unkind city where sex, prostitution, rape and sexual
and racist exploitation are the norm (call me naive,
but there is more to London than this).
There are only
three Brit characters, consisting of two nasty bullies
working for the UK Immigration Service, and the
biggest nasty of all of them (spoiler alert): the
human organ dealer. The rest of the characters are all
immigrants in some way, from the innocent young Senay
at the bottom of the food chain up to the powerful
Spanish owner of the hotel in which she works as a
maid.
The Brits are unquestionably portrayed as the
powerful figures and enforcers, while the immigrants
are all seen as a generic underclass working for their
masters. Such casting and plotlines detailing the
underground legal and illegal immigration 'underworld'
of the system - a trait lauded by reviewers and film
enthusiasts as being almost revolutionary in film- is
perhaps where the film is let down the most.
In what
is most definitely a immigraxploitation pic (nice
word, eh!), nothing is left to subtlety or the
imagination- we are spoon-fed a hatred of the
'system', and most importantly we are not allowed to
think freely about the important political and ethical
issues involved. Yet a huge contradiction exists due
to the wonderfully smooth editing and quasi-foreign
music that pervades, which constantly makes us feel as
though what we are seeing is purely 'entertainment' to
be enjoyed.
That said, Audrey Tautou and Chiwetel Ejiofor
(currently starring in The Vortex at London's Donmar
Warehouse) are truly magnificent as the leads, and
really do give everything they can to their parts.
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