Dirty Pretty Things
We go to school. We memorise formulas. We give exams. We excel in them. We go to the top universities. We excel there. We get a job in a big company. We work day and night. We get promotions. All of these are stages of the rat race and we are the participants. But what is our final goal? A luxurious life in a big city like London, New York or Paris. A life of big houses, cars and high-paying jobs. But little do we know that the worst scams go on in these cities most efficiently. This is a movie in which we get to know about people’s real lives and suffering.
This movie centers on an immigrant named Okwe. He works as a driver by day and a receptionist of the Baltic hotel by night. He shares an apartment with a Turkish girl, Senay, who illegally works in the hotel as a maid. One night, Okwe discovers a human heart in one of the toilets. But when he asks questions about it, he is silenced by the manager, Senor Juan. “People come and do dirty things at night in hotels, it is our job to make them look pretty by day.” he says as he throws the heart in the dustbin. Okwe very soon discovers about a kidney racket going on where immigrants exchange one of their kidneys for a passport which Senor Juan provides.
The immigrants are lured by this offer because of their desperate lives. They aren’t allowed to work, rent a place or earn money by any other means. So, they find this a convenient way from which they can officially start earning money. Even Senay, Okwe’s friend gets fooled by Senor Juan but then is warned off by Okwe. But then Senor Juan discovers Okwe’s haunted past and his old job as a doctor and uses it to blackmail Okwe into working for him as the surgeon supposed to take out the kidneys. But Okwe, Senay and two of his friends get the better of Senor Juan; Okwe goes back to his family and Senay goes to her dream destination, America.
What this movie proves is that we always make impressions using superficial information. We imagine pictures of wealth and luxury in big cities, but never really see the darker side of things. We look at a beautiful face and feel attracted, but never bother to have a proper conversation with that person. We look at the fame and wealth of a person and become fans without checking how they have helped other’s lives any bit. We see some sensational news and believe it, but we never try to check out the real facts. This movie teaches us to change our attitude and start questioning and analyzing instead of believing.
