The Visitor

Nov 12 2009

Has anyone seen the movie “The Visitor”?  I watched it twice.  Would love to discuss.  Among many other things, it illustrates “joy first, theory second”.

7 responses so far

  1. Doug
    on 12 Nov 2009 at 7:08 pm

    Saw it. Liked it. The primary message to me was how illegal immigration policy can cause such pain for people.

  2. michael
    on 12 Nov 2009 at 7:20 pm

    Saw it. Liked it.

    I watched it back to back with Smart People, both of which talk about how soul-crushing and meaningless academia can be.

  3. sharolyn
    on 12 Nov 2009 at 8:27 pm

    I had considered many aspects of the movie, but hadn’t considered that one. Good point.

    Someone I know said that it is about the power of music. But even at the beginning of the movie the professor is playing the piano, so he already had music. This points to the transformation of his character from the beginning to end of the film, and asks: Why is music more meaningful to him at the end of the story?

  4. chad
    on 13 Nov 2009 at 8:33 am

    Shar… I think his ordeal forces him back into life. He feels all this pent up and compartmentalized pain for the first time in… years? decades?

    All of a sudden, the music has a crest of emotion to ride.

  5. Sharolyn
    on 13 Nov 2009 at 9:25 am

    The last scene of the movie is one of my favorite movie scenes. Ever.

    SPOILER ALERT…

    Although we never meet his wife, or even know if it was a good marriage, we know he has been through four piano teachers. It as though he is lost and looking for her, or even himself.

    What he doesn’t find in the piano he finds in the djembe, and the family he meets along the way. They leave (symbolically) fresh flowers in the apartment he never uses. He (symbolically) gets new glasses / a new view and perspective on life. And in the end, sheds the big heavy piano and plays a drum in the subway, not for anyone in particular.

    I love so many things about this movie.

  6. sharolyn
    on 14 Nov 2009 at 3:23 pm

    I’m surprised that someone put just those two minutes on YouTube.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJ_Aw2Icxzk

  7. sharolyn
    on 29 Jun 2010 at 5:07 pm

    Thought today of “joy first, theory second”. A character in my book is reading a book for the first time in years, and only because his life depends on it. He finds it not as bad as he feared. Anyhow, the quote is: “You learn more if you’re laughing at the same time.”

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