Neha Raithatha

Hotel Babylon Immigration Raid scene

This clip is about the treatment of illegal immigrants working secretly in the UK. We are shown briefly how the police and immigration officers work and the procedures taken to keep the immigrants safe. There is a significant construction of the representation of social class, which I will explore in close detail.
At the beginning of this clip, we see a mid shot of a man and two police officers walking into the hotel. The camera then cuts to a medium close up of a woman dressed in white, who seems to be working at the Hotel. The fact that she is wearing white makes her seem almost angelic. This is because white has connotations of heavenly and pure. Her heavenly qualities soon become obvious as she tells one of her workers to file some papers in the basement. The audience soon realises that this was code for her telling her employee or warn the immigrant workers in the basement that the Immigration officers were in the hotel. The fact that she does this means that the immigrants can hide, therefore she saves their lives much like an angel would. Also, the fact that she is in a suit suggests that her role in this clip is important and that she is of higher social class than the other employees of the hotel. The mid-shot of Jackie, who is sitting at her desk is shown from a high-angle. This makes Jackie seem vulnerable and the scared expression on her face emphasises that danger is about to approach. Also, the non-digetic sound in the background is eerie music that foreshadows that something bad is about to happen. The beat of the music also quickens the speed of the shots and adds to the tense atmosphere. Furthermore, we then hear the digetic sound of Jackie warning the immigrant workers about the officers in another language which we assume is their native tone. The fact that she warns them signifies how she must be the leader of their group and therefore has the responsibility of protecting them against the officers. The audience feels sympathetic towards Jackie as the lives of many workers are in her hands, and she must hide them so that they do not get caught. The next shot is of Jackie and the immigrant workers running down the corridor, towards the camera, then into a room. This whole shot is shown through cage barriers. The caging makes the workers look like animals that are caged in and must be tamed and saved from the officers who seem to act as predators. This also suggests that the workers are treated like animals due to their ethnicity. This portrayal signifies that immigrants are treated as a lower social class, which is further emphasised by their jobs such as cleaners and cooks, which would be at the bottom of the occupation hierarchy in a hotel. All of the workers are either wearing red or white. This could signify two things the red could represent the danger that the immigrants are attracting and the white could highlight how they are innocent people who are just trying to earn a living and are not doing any harm. The fact that Jackie is standing at the front of the locked room and all of the workers are looking towards her makes her seem like she has more authority and the suit she is wearing suggests that she is from a higher social class. The positioning of the characters in this shot makes it seem like Jacking is herding her animals into the locked room to ensure that she can keep them all safe.

Neha Raithatha When one of the workers in the room faints, a male worker and Jackie rush to her rescue. The digetic sound of the worker explaining that the fainted employee is diabetic and having a hypoglycaemic attack is a shock to both the audience and Jackie as no-one would assume an immigrant worker to be educated about human health. The fact that the worker knows this means that he is able to feed the fainted employee some jam in order to raise her blood sugar levels. At this point, it is like the audience sees Jackies respect for the worker grow within the few seconds of that shot and even she seems to appreciate that the workers were once educated, successful people who have now been forced into labour work in order to earn money for their families: I wasnt always a cleaner. This encourages audiences to want the employees to be kept safe and puts the immigration officers in a position of invasion and makes the audience dislike them. Even the fact that Jackie is wearing makeup signifies her higher social class. The fact that she is wearing makeup must mean that she has a job that pays her enough to be able to afford makeup and other luxuries. This high-paying job means that she is automatically of a higher status than the workers. Upstairs in the corridor outside the hotel rooms, one of the workers is vacuuming, unaware that the immigration officers have found him. In one shot, we see the side of Ibrahims (the immigrant worker) face in shallow focus and the immigration officers in deep focus in the background as they walk out of the elevator with their eyes set on the worker. The fact that they are in deep focus portrays how they are of a higher social class and are all-knowing. Ibrahim being in shallow focus with headphones on makes him oblivious to the officers who are about to capture him, the focus almost represents how his consciousness is blurred. Back in the lobby, after Ibrahim is taken away, the concierge, dressed fully in white acts as a mediator to bring peace to the hotel lobby after the dramatic exit of the immigrant worker (who was taken away by the immigration officers). She stays calm and collected and dressed in a white suit, seems to be of a higher social class. The fact that she brings peace to the scene also suggests how she has higher authority and power to be able to calm down the on- looking guests of the hotel. In the last scene, we see a pan of Jackie and some of the other workers as she clears Ibrahims locker. When the camera zooms into Jackie locking the locker, it re-confirms the end of Ibrahims career. We then see a pan of the canteen where the workers are eating. It signifies that even though they are all together in the lower class, they are still partitioned as each table represents an ethnic group and we do not see any two different ethnic groups eating together. The slower non-digetic music adds a depressing tone to an already tense atmosphere.