Dirty Pretty Things

Dirty Pretty Things Imagery

Coming home

At the end of the film, we watch as Okwe walks towards a payphone at the airport after Senay leaves for New York. We see the sun rising out of the window just before he makes a call to his daughter in Nigeria to tell her he's coming home. The image is the first time we see Okwe being more emotionally forthcoming, after bearing the burden of so much stress and fear throughout the film. The airport, as a setting, evokes the fact that Okwe has been caught between worlds for a long time, and is now able to return to his home and find peace once again.

The Heart

After Juliette tells Okwe to check out a problem in room 510, he goes up to find that the toilet is clogged and overflowing. At first, he thinks this is a standard problem, one he has encountered many times before, but when he goes fishing around in the toilet for the cause, the toilet bowl fills with blood, and he pulls out a human heart. The image reveals that there is something much more intense and dramatic going on at the hotel, that things are not what they seem. There is a dark mystery that has yet to be understood.

Okwe, Senay, and Juliette

After Okwe extracts Sneaky's kidney, he, Senay, and Juliette go to the hotel parking lot to meet the man who is picking up the organ. They are an unlikely trio of individuals to be participating in the organ black market, and as they walk towards the man in a little triangle, they represent an image of community and hope for a brighter future. Indeed, they are on the precipice of escape, as Senay and Okwe are about to go to the airport, and Juliette is about to get a wad of cash.

Senay dancing

After she is sexually exploited at her job at the sweatshop, Senay begins to fray emotionally. We see her at home, dancing ecstatically to Turkish music, clearly trying to dance through the trauma of her subjugation at work. It is a dissonant image of a woman who has been broken by her circumstances, but is determined to dance through it, trying to scrape up some semblance of happiness.