When it comes to filmmakers who position themselves as provocateurs, there is generally an unspoken line that very few of them are willing to cross. Two filmmakers who took a more devil-may-care approach to this boundary, and would gleefully cross it with seemingly very little hesitation, are Pier Paolo Pasolini and Bruce LaBruce, two filmmakers who apparently could not be more different in terms of period Pasolini died several years before LaBruce stepped behind a camera or style, yet shared the same fondness for pushing boundaries further than they perhaps ought to have gone.
LaBruce carries many of these ideas over to The Visitor , which follows a similar premise, exploring the dynamic between an upper-class family and the visitor who goes from a pleasant guest to the root of their social downfall and eventual liberation, all through challenging their perceptions and daring them to bypass the status quo, along which they carefully curated their lavish but otherwise dull lives.
LaBruce is nothing if not wildly ambitious, and as we see throughout The Visitor , he is more than willing to forego decency for the sake of conveying a particular message.
From its first moments, where the titular character washes up in a suitcase on the Thames River, we are aware that this film is going to be something very different, and one that will proudly court controversy.
The narration delivers a passionate manifesto warning against the dangers of immigration, while we watch this character emerge as if he was hatching from a shell, in an extremely striking depiction of the immigrant experience.
