- PARIS - As far as Steven
Spielberg's new blockbuster, "The Terminal," is concerned, the
experience of being trapped inside an airport for a year can lead to friendship,
comic high jinks, and even romance.
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- But it's hard to see the life of Mehran Karimi Nasseri
through Spielberg-colored glasses. Mr. Nasseri is the inspiration for the
movie - a real-life Iranian refugee who arrived at Paris's Charles de Gaulle
Airport in 1988 without a passport and without papers to enter another
country. He's been stuck in Terminal One ever since. Like a lost and battered
suitcase, he has been claimed by no one.
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- "The Terminal," which opened Friday in the
United States, recounts the hardships of Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a
fictitious Balkan traveler stranded at New York's JFK Airport. His homeland
erupts into civil war and his passport becomes void. He can't officially
enter the US, but neither can he return to Eastern Europe. So he lives
for months in the hermetically sealed microcosm of an airport concourse.
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- Some of Navorski's survival tactics are similar to Nasseri's,
like bathing in the washroom, setting up a living area on a bench, and
accepting food vouchers from airport workers. But where the movie has embellished
the story with madcap adventures and a fling with a flight attendant played
by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Nasseri's life consists mostly of reading. His
most recent book is Hillary Clinton's autobiography. "Maybe I don't
do it like Tom Hanks does it," he says. "My day is just like
inside a library. Silence."
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- Lately, though, he's had more visitors than usual. This
urban legend is already the subject of three other films, two of them documentaries.
Reporters and tourists visit and talk with him all day at his makeshift
press lounge. "Is this public entertainment?" Nasseri asks with
a pained grimace. Yet, at the same time, "Alfred," as he is also
known, seems to relish his celebrity.
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- "He is known throughout the world and people come
to see him," says ValÈrie Chevillot, who can see Nasseri's
encampment of assorted boxes, bags, and suitcases through the window of
her PhÈnix clothing boutique. "But no one really knows him."
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- The original crisis began when Nasseri tried to travel
to England from Belgium via France. But he lost papers declaring his status
as an Iranian refugee. It's been confirmed that he was expelled from Iran
in the 1970s, but the famous squatter has since rejected his heritage -
even denied he can speak Farsi - under the belief that his Iranian background
is the cause of cause of his troubles. No family members have ever contacted
him. "Police say they don't live," he says cryptically.
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- Summarizing the details of Alfred's bureaucratic nightmare
since then isn't easy. Nasseri waited at Charles de Gaulle while Britain,
France, and Belgium played a shell game with his case for years. At one
point, in a classic Catch-22, Belgian authorities said they had proof of
his original refugee papers, but insisted he pick them up in person - yet
wouldn't let him into the country. He has been jailed several times, and
technically could be removed from the airport at any time.
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- After a lengthy legal battle waged by his lawyer, the
French government finally gave him the necessary documents to reside in
France and legally travel.
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- But he refuses to use them.
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- Nasseri is convinced he has no official identity. If
he leaves France, he says, "There are soldiers there who shoot you
dead." So he won't venture further than the first floor of the terminal.
"I stay until I obtain my origin identity," he often repeats.
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- Airport shopkeepers don't seem bothered by the fuss over
their famous neighbor. The cleaning staff warn that he'll charge a few
euros if you take his picture. But otherwise, "he never asks anything
of anyone," says Mossaoid Ben, who runs the Coccimarket next door.
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- Mr. Ben hypothesizes why Nasseri has remained in the
dreary cocoon of the Charles de Gaulle building, a kind of doughnut-shaped,
concrete UFO stranded out on the tarmac. "He'll have to pay rent elsewhere.
Maybe that's why he's here."
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- Other theories abound as to why Nasseri persists with
his self-imposed exile. "In my opinion, Alfred needs professional
help to get him adapted to the outside world," says Alexis Kouros,
an Iranian documentary filmmaker and doctor, who tried to help him leave
for Brussels while making his film, "Waiting for Godot at de Gaulle,"
in 2000. "He used to be a normal person. By spending 15 years in that
place, he has become institutionalized," says Mr. Kouros, who worries
Alfred's mental health is worsening.
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- Nasseri, a pale and listless man, spends much of his
day writing on sheets of blank white paper that have become a journal of
his self-imposed captivity. "I write about what I hear on the news,"
he says. "Ray Charles dead; the elections in France." His reams
of papers and books fill some dozen Lufthansa cargo boxes. "The only
problem is I need a portable TV," he says.
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- In theory, he has plenty of money to buy one. DreamWorks,
the company that made "The Terminal," paid Nasseri for the use
of his story. But he doesn't have a bank account, so he can't access checks
reportedly sent to his lawyer.
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- Nevertheless, he's enjoying the renewed burst of attention.
"Gives me something more to read. It's better to read than about war,
Iraq, terrorism," he says.
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- There's also a hint of optimism in Nasseri's voice. He
talks wistfully of how he hopes to move to the United States or Canada.
"I expect some change by October," he says. "In the end
I will be happy."
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- Copyright © 2004 The Christian Science Monitor.
All rights reserved.
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- http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0621/p11s02-almo.html
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