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. Nasseri waited at Charles de Gaulle while Britain, France, and Belgium played a shell game with his case for years. Summarizing the details of Alfred's bureaucratic nightmare since then isn't easy. "Police say they don't live," he says cryptically. No family members have ever contacted him. 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. But he lost papers declaring his status as an Iranian refugee. The original crisis began when Nasseri tried to travel to England from Belgium via France. "He is known throughout the world and people come to see him," says Valérie Chevillot, who can see Nasseri's encampment of assorted boxes, bags, and suitcases through the window of her Phénix clothing boutique. Yet, at the same time, "Alfred," as he is also known, seems to relish his celebrity. "Is this public entertainment?" Nasseri asks with a pained grimace. Reporters and tourists visit and talk with him all day at his makeshift press lounge. This urban legend is already the subject of three other films, two of them documentaries. Lately, though, he's had more visitors than usual.
"Maybe I don't do it like Tom Hanks does it," he says. His most recent book is Hillary Clinton's autobiography.
#CATHERINE ZETA JONES THE TERMINAL MOVIE#
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. 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. So he lives for months in the hermetically sealed microcosm of an airport concourse. He can't officially enter the US, but neither can he return to Eastern Europe. His homeland erupts into civil war and his passport becomes void. "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. Like a lost and battered suitcase, he has been claimed by no one. He's been stuck in Terminal One ever since. 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. 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.īut it's hard to see the life of Mehran Karimi Nasseri through Spielberg-colored glasses.
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