Los tres cortometrajes analizados aquí son, en orden cronológico, Zulu 9 (2001), Padraig agus Nadia (Patrick y Nadia, 2002) y Yu Ming is An Domn (Mi Nombre Es Yu Ming, 2003). Las questiones de la presencia, aparición y la voz del otro, así como la reacción del anfitrión al primer encuentro se estudian individualmente antes de establecer las posibles conexiones entre las películas y la evolución y futuro de la representación del tema.
2. Representation of immigrants in contemporary Irish short film.
Zulu 9: The Other as enemy.
Kevin Montford had seen a lot in life, even before he started driving long-haul articulated trucks. He thinks he has made the right choices, until life walks all over him, in this refugee drama. (Rockett 2003 p108)
The Irish Times, in its edition of the 2 June 1998 reports that:
Seven men and a woman were found on boxes in the 40-foot container by the driver of (a) lorry who pulled over on the Naas dual-carriageway when he heard a banging sound and voices … The discovery of the stowaways brings to 36 the number of Romanians smuggled into Ireland in container lorries arriving from Cherbourg in the last three weeks. (Cleary 1998)
Zulu 9 is the story of a lorry driver coming from continental Europe, driving northbound in the N11. He hears voices in the container (loaded with ‘chemical stuff’), stops and gets off the lorry, but refrains from opening the container and gets in again, calls service in the radio, and is instructed to keep driving. Later on, he is told to stop, but after hearing what sounds like gunshots, he is commanded to continue driving, and is soon joined and escorted by a number of police cars and a helicopter. The smell of the chemicals carried in the container, which have obviously spilt as a result of the shots, starts to leak into the cabin. The driver calls service again, this time using the code Zulu 9, and is instructed to pull over a slip road, where a SWAT, anti-terrorist like operation has been mounted. Policemen open the doors of the container, from where a thick green smoke comes out. After a brief shot of black people lying (dead) on the floor, a woman gets off holding the dead body of a baby in her arms, guns aiming at her. ‘Put down your weapons,’ somebody shouts, even though it is evident that the woman is not armed. The woman takes a match out of her pocket, and lights it, the film finishing with the sound of a big explosion.
In Zulu 9, he first signal of the existence of the other are noises coming from a black box, the container. It is reasonable for the driver to feel surprised, and then scared, as his voice and expressions evidence, aided by the shaking, sometimes unfocused, handheld camera and the use of close-ups; not only his routine, almost dull activity has been altered beyond his comprehension, but the familiar figure of the container becomes a fearful black box, which he even refrains from opening after hearing the first noises.
The reaction of the authorities is less simple to explain or understand: the vast deployment of police force, including patrol cars, trucks, and tanks, as well as dozens of heavily armed officers, but no ambulances, seems incommensurable with the situation, and their attitudes and actions can only be explained as fear of the Other as enemy, or threat. ***Note: Two excerpts from Naïr’s article (op. cit.) can be literally applied here:
All the elements of the expiatory disparities are in place: geographical origin, skin colour, religious culture. Everything, in other words, there are no longer any possible meeting points in the contact with the Other (sic). There is only adversity, difference, opposition.
The Other is demonised, not only to be separated, but also to render thinkable, possible the conditions of their death, of their annihilation. (Naïr op. cit. p234, my translation)***
The enemy, Naïr tells us (op. cit. p232), has a face in a space: South; in this case represented by their skin colour, which indicates their African origin ***Note: Being both from that ‘mental South,’ it makes no difference if the refugees are African or Romanian, but coming from Africa, as Gerard Stembridge’s Black Day at Black Rock shows (see filmography), implies also the menace of AIDS; the disposition of the African immigrants to share syringes, donate blood, or have sexual intercourse with the hosts never being really discussed***, but also by the provenance of the lorry from continental Europe, and its going northbound in an Irish road.
The Times article (1998 op. cit.) claims that bands of traffickers operating from Germany or the Netherlands are responsible for the illegal introduction of people to Ireland from France. The police in Zulu 9 don’t seem to think so; the people locked in that container are the criminals, and shall be treated as such. The effects of their exposition to the chemicals (their deaths) are not even considered. The still from the film that accompanies its précis in the Film Board’s web page (Bord Scannán na hÉireann/The Irish Film Board 2003) and Rockett’s book (2003) is exemplary: in the left, directly illuminated by a spotlight that also appears in the composition, her hair wrapped by a shawl and wearing a coloured, ‘traditional’ dress under a raincoat, her back to the camera, stands the woman in a defiant attitude opposite a policeman wearing a bullet-proof vest aiming a gun at her face, even though a previous shot from his point of view shows that she is unarmed, and two SWAT squad members in full regalia, also aiming light machine guns at her. Two other officers stand behind a patrol car. Assimilation, segmentation, or multiculturalism are no options here; the annihilation of the Other, their death, but at least their imprisonment and deportation, is the only route.
When he gets off the truck, and sees the scale and character of the police operation, the driver says ‘there’s people in the back,’ being the only one more concerned about their safety than about their mere existence or presence. Of course, at that point, there’s only dead people in the back.
The woman in the truck probably doesn’t speak English, but even if she did, it would be of little help after the death of her family and being aimed at with guns. Anyway, she doesn’t speak at all during her brief appearance, and at the end, the Other only has a presence outside of the black box for two minutes at the end of the film, and is not given a voice.
The end of the film, the explosion, even if (literally) consistent with Hartley’s definition and undoubtedly a cathartic climax, is the weakest part of the film, especially after several viewings, because her actions, her defiant attitude, and carrying the matches and lighting them for that effect, are not entirely verisimilar or credible.
Padraig agus Nadia: The Other as mistery and the process of assimilation.
Padraig agus Nadia tells the story of the relationship between Padraig, a young Irish speaking man and Nadia, an immigrant girl who lives in his same block. Nadia and her family come from an island in the Dead Sea where, as a result of successive waves of colonization and oppression, there is no spoken language, and its inhabitants communicate through corporal language and visual contact. Padraig is fascinated by Nadia’s beauty, but she is very shy and only after a few failed attempts and encounters they manage to start a relationship. Her family invites him to have dinner in their flat. In the prevalent silence, Padraig’s clumsy attempts to communicate are interpreted as verbosity. The evening ends with an argument (Nadia and her family’s words appearing in comic strip-like pannels, in Irish), and Nadia is eventually banned from seeing Padraig again. A few days later, Padraig protects Nadia’s brother from a group of school bullies, and is beaten by their older brothers. In the hospital, forgiven and accepted by Nadia’s family, Nadia talks to Padraig in Irish, and he answers her in her language.
This is the only film in the sample in which the means and the moment of coming to Ireland are not addressed. Nadia and her family do not belong to the list of ‘personae characterized by their mobility’ (which ranges from Abraham to circus people, through the wandering Jew and the crusaders), suggested by Durham (1999, p18), except as immigrants; but movement is not, for them, ‘one of the central resources for social description.’ Crucial, as their displacement may have been for their lives, it is now a part of the past that is not mentioned. Similarly for Padraig, even though the differences between Nadia and him originate from their diverse geographical origins, and her coming into Ireland is the only reason that permits their improbable encounter, the act of coming is, itself, ignored.
The unawareness of their coming also implies, to a certain extent, unawareness of their motherland, which is only mentioned when the landlord explains to Padraig why Nadia doesn’t speak. For every character, Nadia and her family’s living in Ireland is naturally accepted. In this sense, they can not be considered exiles:
“Exile” suggests a painful or punitive banishment from one’s homeland. Though it can be either voluntary or involuntary, internal or external, exile generally implies a fact of trauma, an imminent danger, usually political, that makes the home no longer safely habitable. (ibid p20).
Under this definition, and considering that one ‘feature of exile (is) its fecundity in producing compensatory fantasies and longings’ (ibid), Nadia’s family can only be considered as ex-exiles, since, as the landlord explains, the came to Ireland running away from oppression, but don’t seem to miss their homeland, or fantasize about or even consider returning there.
Of the three ways of life the immigrants can have in their host country, according to Shafir (op. cit. p11); assimilation, segmentation, and multiculturalism, Nadia’s parents seem to belong to the second one: except for the two scenes with Padraig in the dinner at their house and in the hospital, they are not shown interacting with any other Irish person, nor their jobs, if they have any, are mentioned. They also oppose their daughter’s involvement with Padraig precisely because of the differences; Padraig is the Other for them. Nadia’s brother, simply by going to a primary school in Ireland, seems more in the way to assimilation, though being bullied by his schoolmates doesn’t facilitate the process. Nadia, on the other hand, represents the ultimate way to assimilation: mating with the host. Even though at the end Padraig has learned (become aware) of Nadia’s language, it doesn’t represent a step towards multiculturalism, in the sense of enriching the host culture, and Padraig and Nadia’s eventual marriage will only contribute to her final adaptation to the host culture.
The metaphor of the black box also appears here, in the form of the flat where Nadia lives. Every time that space is portrayed, intermediate shots and other contextual details like clocks or fragments of conversation indicate that it is night time, all the light comes from within, and no windows are ever shown. It is a source of anxiety for Padraig, but it also arises his curiosity; and he ventures to go in there for the dinner. The interior shots of his flat and the hospital room, in contrast, have a much brighter, seemingly natural illumination, often from windows open to the daylight.
At the end, the difficulty of having no voice (or in other words, not speaking the host’s language, in this case Irish) is only supered by Nadia in the last sequence, and, if unlike in Zulu 9, the Other has a permanent presence throughout the film, they are still effectively voiceless, and communication with the host is almost impossible.
Yu Ming: Do you speak Chinese?
Yu Ming is a young Chinese cashier bored with his life and constantly distracted and negligent in his job. Decided to change his life, he goes to his local library, spins a globe and stops it with his finger on Ireland. He then takes out an atlas to find information about the country, including its language: Irish. For the next few months, he learns the Gaelic language with the help of courses he borrows from the library, and finally comes to Ireland. Off the plane and to the city. Yu Ming goes to a hostel, but has trouble to communicate with the attendant, who doesn’t speak Irish and thinks Yu Ming is addressing him in Chinese. The problems continue when he goes to a traditional Irish pub, in search for a job, but the bartender, who doesn’t speak Irish either, takes him for a tourist and offers him a pint of Guinness. Finally an old man in the pub, who understands Irish calls him and explains, elogiating his mastering of the language, that Irish is spoken by very few people in the country. Finally, a much happier Yu Ming is shown working as a bartender in a pub somewhere in the Gaeltach, speaking in Irish.
Yu Ming is the only one of the three short films in which the Other is first presented in their motherland, and the reasons from their coming to Ireland are exposed. As my own work on newspaper coverage of refugees and asylum seekers in Ireland, and Lipsitz (1999) show, migration, specially from Naïr’s ‘South,’ ‘makes sense’ in economic terms. Bello (1994), cited in Lipsitz (ibid p194) states that:
Migrants are not obsessed nomads seeking the emerald cities, … they are refugees fleeing the wasteland that has been created by the economic equivalent of a scorched earth strategy.
Yu Ming, however, is not a refugee or an economic migrant, what the Irish public opinion seems to regard every immigrant in Ireland, and the Marxists Bello and Lipsitz every immigrant in the world. He is not even a student abroad, a category that can be considered indirectly uided by economic reasons, and searching for a job in a pub would only maintain the economic status he had as a shop cashier in his country. Instead, he is the nomad looking for the emerald city (or at least a city in this emerald Island. The Irish map is painted in green in the book in which Yu Ming learns the language in Ireland is the Irish Gaelic), and moreover, he fits in the definition of nomad as opposed to exile in Durham (op. cit. p20):
Whereas exile often occurs in relation to some looming authority figure who wields power over life and death, nomadism can involve active defiance or furtive avoidance of the sedentary authority of state and society.
He is just bored with his sedentary life, and longs a change he can only imagine happening if he goes abroad; to a different country, not to a richer one. In this sense, it doesn’t matter where he is going, and his choice of Ireland is arbitrary and only ruled by the chance of his stopping the globe. Hence, coming to this country is not an overt attack to the Irish institutions and society (as may be in Zulu 9, from the authorities point of view), but the only way Yu Ming can escape his dull reality.
There is nothing impulsive in his actions, however. He takes months to master the language, if not the culture for his misfortune, before coming to Ireland, preparing himself for the culture shock and the assimilation to the host culture. This preparation makes even harder his two first experiences of not being able to communicate, as he blames himself for not speaking correctly, even after months of work.
From the Irish point of view, for the hostel attendant and the barman, Yu Ming is just one more of the tens of thousands of Chinese people living in Ireland and coming every year. Since they don’t speak Irish, and the most natural thin to do for a young Chinese is to speak Chinese, Yu Ming is taken for granted and not heard. The man in the Hostel offers him a room and the barman a beer, because that is what Chinese people have wanted before, no matter if they asked for it in English, Chinese or Irish. In this case, the Other is no longer new, but the only contact with the host is a series of routine transactions, without real communication taking place. The only person surprised by Yu Ming in their first encounter is the old man in the pub who understands that he is speaking in Irish.
The final sequence of the film somewhat closes a cycle, with Yu Ming in a similar job to that he had at the beginning, but seemingly more happy. This finale raises the question of why doesn’t he aspire to social mobility and is satisfied only with achieving the same status, somewhere else.
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In Zulu 9, the other was a threat, locked (for good) in a black box, without a real physical presence, or a voice. It is the same in Black Day at Blacrock. In Padraig agus Nadia, the Other is still confined to a black box, but is now a mystery to be explored, rather than a menace. They look the same as the host, and the only difference is their (lack of) language, which makes communication impossible until the final resolution. Yu Ming, looking the same (from the host point of view) as any other young Chinese met before, is neither a threat, nor an enigma, but is taken for granted and not heard or understood, again until the final resolution. They only case in which the Other is present, heard, and influences the host is in When Brendan Met Trudy, when the Nigerian man says he is ‘one of those refugees.’
In conclusion, the Other has gained a presence, a voice, and is acknowledged in contemporary Irish film, but is still so only from the Irish perspective: Yu Ming would make little sense to the audiences if shown abroad Ireland, even in China. The continuous growth of immigration in Ireland, including augmenting numbers of students, and first generation Irish-Immigrants seems to lead to their accordingly increasing representation from varied angles in Irish film, but also to the blooming of what Naficy (1999) calls ‘exilic cinema,’ that is, films made by the Other, as explorations, or even exorcisms of their living abroad.
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