In the film The Visitor (2008), an alienated American man of European descent encounters immigrants, from Syria and Senegal, and his assumptions are challenged and his life enriched. The American man is educated, knows about history, culture, and politics, but his own life seems to lack joy and wisdom. He is a lonely figure, until he meets the strangers who become his friends, one of whom introduces him to new music. The principal crisis in the film involves the incarceration of the Syrian musician due to his immigration status. As soon as the police realized that he is “an illegal Immigrant”, their behaviour changes towards him. This idea supports Appiah (2006) when he states that “once we ascribe an identity to someone we can often make predictions about [their] behavior on that basis” (p. 16).
The film The Visitor (2008), allows its viewers to contemplate the unpredictability of friendship, the indifference of bureaucratic power, the limits of white male privilege, and the unresolvable nature of human experience. As an international student in Canada, I could easily contemplate the indifference and sympathy, grief and pleasure, suspicion and recognition, and anger and pain of the characters because I know that as foreigner the social location and social identity changes. As immigrants, we do lose our social identity in the process of assimilation and acculturation (Murru, 2008).
