The Steven Spielberg movie inspired by the life of an Iranian refugee
While many filmmakers have contributed to the global domination of Hollywood, very few of them are as instantly recognisable as Steven Spielberg. With incredible blockbusters such as Jaws and Jurassic Park under his belt, Spielberg is widely known as one of the most financially successful directors in the history of the medium. Alongside the record-breaking box office numbers, he has also had a lasting impact on the dynamic fabric of popular culture.
Although most film fans immediately associate the American auteur with epic projects like the Indiana Jones franchise, Spielberg’s filmography also contains relatively quieter gems that operate on a much smaller scale but delight audiences all the same. One such example is the 2004 comedy The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks as an Eastern European man who gets stuck at New York’s JFK airport because of unforeseen political complications.
During an interview with the DGA, Spielberg revealed that it was a tribute to the French auteur Jacques Tati: “I thought of two directors when I made Terminal. I thought this was a tribute to Frank Capra and his honest sentiment, and it was a tribute to Jacques Tati and the way he allowed his scenes to go on and on and on. The character he played in Mr. Hulot’s Holiday and Mon Oncle was all about resourcefulness and using what’s around him to make us laugh.”
The film is a quasi-Kafkaesque view of the abstract bureaucracy that governs real human issues such as immigration and the movement of individuals across political borders. In addition to being a success at the box office, The Terminal earned acclaim from fans as well as critics, who were impressed by Hanks’ moving central performance. Interestingly, the story was actually based on the strange life of an Iranian refugee named Mehran Karimi Nasseri.
Known by many as ‘Sir Alfred’, Nasseri spent around 18 years at the Charles de Gaulle Airport after arriving in 1988. According to him, his papers were stolen, but since he could not prove his status as a refugee, Nasseri was initially detained by the authorities in the waiting area. Even though he was later offered residency by both France and Belgium, he refused to sign any papers because he did not want to be officially recognised as an Iranian and did not want to give up on his plans of entering the UK.
During the early phase of the production process, it was reported that Dreamworks paid Nasseri around $275,000 for the film rights, but The Terminal turned out to be a loose adaptation of the man’s curious existence in the French airport. In 2022, Nasseri passed away at Charles de Gaulle Airport – where he had spent a significant chunk of his life – after suffering a fatal heart attack.
Watch the trailer below.
