Born into Brothels
By: Mark Runyon | Category: On DVD | 10/16/05 | 11:36 PM
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Grade: A- | Genre: Documentary
Summary: You can't walk away from Born into Brothels and forget these children. Their faces burn into your mind until you start asking what can we do to stop this vicious cycle from robbing another generation from their childhood.
Last year saw documentary filmmaking enter the mainstream with Michael Moore's box office coup Fahrenheit 9/11. It stoked waves of controversy concerning his scathing take on the ineffectual Bush administration. The film was considered a sure fire win for the Oscar for best documentary filmmaking, yet he decided to bypass collecting his third artsy Oscar to instead take his chances at reeling in the big kahuna of Oscars, Best Picture. The gamble backfired, failing to even secure a nomination. If there is a positive to Moore getting overlooked, it was that the buffet table at the Oscar after-parties didn't run out by 8 o'clock. More importantly though, it blew the documentary category wide open, pulling in features from a man destroying himself with daily injections of greasy Big Macs (Super-Size Me) to Tupac's final words (Tupac: Resurrected). In between the fanfare lays this gem, shot in the streets of the red light district in Calcutta, India; Born into Brothels. Enter only if you are ready to take a hard look at poverty that knows no boundaries. |
Zana Briski is a photographer who ventured into the dangerous red light district to document the lives of the prostitutes who lived in the back alleys among absolute filth and squalor. What she discovered were the children. The children of these women play and try to embrace the happy, carefree existence of childhood, but their looming futures hangs over them. They spend days flying kites from the rooftops as to not disturb mother and her client. They wash stacks of dishes to supplement the families' meager income. They withstand torrents of obscenities and massive blows to their budding self esteem from parents and neighbors. The girls live each day knowing they are one closer to being pushed into the family profession that has consumed every generation of woman. They do whatever it takes to survive.
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| Born into Brothels |
| Starring: Avigit, Gour, Puja, Kochi, and Manik |
| Director: Ross Kauffman, Zana Briski |
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Briski takes a group of these slowly hardening children under her wing to give them a means to express themselves in a world that doesn't respect their voice. She gives them each a camera, telling the children to go out and document their world as seen through their eyes. Cameras aren't really seen in this area, and some subjects take great offense to having their picture taken. It reminds you of the voodoo notion of a picture capturing a person's soul. The first rolls come back looking like they were taken by 10-year-olds, complete with hands reaching into the frame and shooting entire rolls at night without the flash on. As the months pass, Briski teaches the children how to see a picture, the results are amazing. These children capture extraordinary images of their people living in poverty beyond belief. They also freeze the vitality of youth and find the beauty nestled into the hopeless shadowing their lives.
Briski tries to get each of them accepted into boarding schools so as to short circuit the destiny of poverty that awaits them. An education is the key that will allow them to escape the slums. At every turn she faces resistance, from the schools that won't accept children of sex workers to the government bureaucracy that ropes her in endless paperwork hell. This doesn't even mention the parents. Some genuinely want to see their children escape their lives while some see their children as little better than unwanted pets they have to clean up after and are happy to be rid of them. Others realize that their children help scrap together the means for their desolate existence and can't let that extra bit of money go even if it means salvation for the young one.
This is a very harrowing film, highlighting the plight of these desperate children. In their eyes, you can see joy and playfulness, yet everywhere they turn its being systematically stamped out by subhuman living conditions. Its tough to watch a person like Briski coming in trying to find them a better life, and everything is structured to stop her from breaking through this f#%ked up social structure. Disappointment on her face is one thing, but disappointment on the children's faces is something entirely different because you know what's sitting behind it. This film works as a very compelling human drama, opening our eyes to this very real problem a world away. Through their photographic journals, they show us that they are talented, artistic, fun loving kids that just want a chance. They want a chance to become something and to live a happy existence without being forced to sell their bodies to the vultures that circle the streets. Poverty is a very real problem, and a film like this slams it home. You can't walk away from Born into Brothels and simply forget these children. Their faces burn into your mind until you start asking what can we do to stop this vicious cycle from robbing another generation from their childhood.
Buy or rent Born into Brothels. Visit Save the Children to find out what you can do to help out those in need.
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