It’s been a while since I watched Steven Speilberg’s “The Terminal,” so when I came across it on YouTube today, I thought I’d give it a whirl.
I saw it today in maybe the light Speilberg intended. Rather
than a simple tale of a man without a country stuck in an airport, this is a
tale of a compassionate society forming around a man stuck in an “unacceptable”
situation.
That in microcosm comes when the characters played by
Stanley Tucci and Tom Hanks confront the Russian man caught in a bureaucratic
snafu not of his making. Simply because his plane from Toronto back to Russia
had a stopover in the United States, he found himself – and the medicine he
needed for his father – trapped in the bureaucracy. Tucci’s character, bound by
the rules, wants the medicine confiscated, making this desperate man’s trip to
Canada – likely only to buy the medicine his father needs – futile. Hanks’
character finds a loophole and urges the man to take it. Not because it’s his
habit of taking loopholes, but because he can see that compassion, not strict
adherence to the rules, is what is needed in this situation. Innocent ignorance
of the rules should, in many times and cases, call for compassion, not a strict
interpretation of the rules, and Viktor Navorsky knows it.
From there, a compassionate society builds, symbolized by
Viktor’s photocopied palm, spread throughout the airport. Many people there
begin to see Viktor – and each other – through a lens of compassion, of
respect, that leads them to behave as humans ought to behave in a world so
bound by rules they often rule humanity out of the equation.
Tucci’s character also shines through in this scene – but as
a man who uses others as tools for his own advancement and means to an end that
he wants. His boss advises him he ought to show more compassion, see the humans
in the story that he’s watching, but that’s advice that is not heeded.
I’m sure that message was there all along, but it took a
casual viewing years after the fact to notice it.
I know Speilberg gets chastised for being preachy. Maybe we
need more preaching.
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