Filming Illegals: Clandestine Translocation and the Representation of Bare Life

Abstract

1. IntroductionIn this essay, I discuss problematic of representing 'illegal' immigrants by investigating two very different attempts at capturing their predicament in British film. Human 'illegality' is not a marginal phenomenon; in summer 2005, British government estimated that around 430,000 people lived in entirely off records, while number of registered asylum seekers was put at roughly another 750,00?.1 Building on these figures, London School of Economics estimated in 2009 that hosts around 750,000 'illegals'.2 Despite fact that and other European powers have rigorously stepped up measures over last two decades to deter clandestine migration while encouraging so-called 'managed' immigration of non- Western elites, these figures indicate that people will continue to live 'illegally' in (and throughout West). A great number of illegals do not enter Europe in back of a lorry or on fishing boats as media often suggest, but overstay a regular visa or enter with forged documents. But, clearly, clandestine migration, too, is very unlikely to decrease anytime soon under current economic world system and its reverberations for societies and ecologies in South. According to several estimates, already more than 100,000 people try to enter European Union clandestinely every year via Mediterranean Sea alone, often by hazardous boat voyages which many do not survive.3 Obviously, ever-new measures of force and fortification have had little effect on those desperate enough to risk imminent deportation and, ultimately, death.4Illegal immigration into Europe and is hardly a new phenomenon, yet in postwar Europe, when immigrant labour was in demand and few refugees reached European shores, they still had a relatively secure standing.5 This changed quite dramatically with establishment of a new world order after 1989 (and particularly with ensuing Balkan crisis) which, together with effects of (neoliberal) globalization, led to a sharp increase in clandestine migration and asylum claims. The legitimacy of political asylum has been systematically discredited in most western European countries ever since, and chances of obtaining asylum began to be effectively minimalized. In this increasingly hostile context, year 2001 marked another significant caesura in British discourse on illegality. In run-up to general election in June, issue of immigration and asylum for first time became a central weapon in campaigning of all political parties, but most notably of Labour, who denounced it as one of Britain's main economic problems. Such populism followed one of most widely publicized tragedies of illegal people smuggling, when in summer 2000 fifty-eight Chinese immigrants were found suffocated in a sealed container in port of Dover. But, of course, it was especially events of September 11 that added a new dimension to perception of illegals. Detailing the impact of anti-terrorism measures on refugees and asylum seekers in Britain in 2007, Refugee Council UK not only confirmed construction of an immediate link between asylum and terrorism in political debates and media reports in wake of 9/11, but also testified to rather draconian effects of ensuing antiterrorism legislation on refugees - such as extended stop-and-search rights, detention rights, and ludicrously accelerated asylum procedures.6It is probably no coincidence, therefore, that illegal migrant took hold in British literature and film as a veritable icon at beginning of twentyfirst century, between 2001 and 2002. It is remarkable, at least, that it is precisely this period which saw publication of widely reviewed novels about illegals by Abdulrazak Gurnah (By Sea, 2001), Benjamin Zephania (Refugee Boy, 2001), and, slightly later, Caryl Phillips (A Distant Shore, 2003), and of films by directors as notable as Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things, 2002) and Michael Winterbottom (In This World, 2002). …