A week ago, I went to see the beautiful new film, "The Visitor", by the director of "The Station Agent". I hadn't been overly inspired by the idea of his first film, and never got around to watching it, even though many raved about it. When I saw the preview for "The Visitor", I must admit what went through my mind was something along the lines of, "Not another Sundance film about uptight Westerners being transformed by exotic ethnic types". Well, I couldn't have been more wrong about what was probably one of the most touching and amazing films I have seen in a while.
I won't tell you what happens in it, because I want you to watch it, but (small spoiler alert), what remains with me most from the film is the image of a man sitting at a Subway station playing a jembe with increasing anger, while no-one listens. And, as the lights came up our little Carlton cinema and I heard the "Ahs" and "Oohs" that came from a delighted, if a little surprised, crowd, I thought, "What will be different when we walk outside? Will we do a single thing about what he have just seen?"
Then, on Thursday night, I went with some people from my Bible study to see Unsung, a local folk quartet playing at the Northcote Town Hall as part of the Darebin Music Feast. Now, the music was, generally, quite amazing, and often deeply compelling, but nothing more so than the closing number, a song about refugees with the repeated chorus, "Our hearts are bigger than this. Our hearts are bigger than this." The small woman with an amazingly powerful voice told us to "join in" with singing the chorus, but we weren't game. Perhaps we just couldn't compete, or perhaps she was breaking up something that we were holding onto a little too dearly - the illusion that this was something we were watching, not something we needed to participate in.
And, walking out of the hall, I felt the same sensation that I had felt after watching "The Visitor", and, wandering down High Street towards my car, I realised why the jembe player was so angry, and who he was angry at.
