Two documentary filmmakers chronicle their time in Sonagchi, Calcutta and the relationships they developed with children of prostitutes who work the city's notorious red light district. [TRAILER]

STEVEN SNYDER'S REVIEW

The Academy Award-winning “Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids” is a moving and effective documentary, no question about it, but I can’t help but feel that it could have been something far more poignant and resonant.

The concept is simple: Filmmakers Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman give a group of children in the red light district of Calcutta a bundle of cameras. Their mission is to capture their view of the world, as residents of the brothels that have come to be their curse. Their situation is tragic: They cannot get into good schools because their mothers are criminals. They can’t work through the bureaucracy in the government to obtain needed documents because they are considered the rabble of society.

And, as sad it is to say, they cannot escape their parents because, well, they are their parents children. The prostitutes in this film seem hesitant to lose their children, or permit them to leave for boarding school, even though it is the only possible way they will become something greater.

While the film is affecting and, in its second half, manages to find momentum in Briski’s determination to save these few kids, there is something disaffecting here that seems tragically misguided. In a sense, “Brothels” feels like it doesn’t hit the emotional marks that it should, given its subject matter.

The first problem is the nature of how Briski tries to help these kids. Photography, in a world like this, seems like a luxury, and impractical. What they need is a better diet, help with their studies, and perhaps some guidance to help them get better jobs, better educations, and break free of the cycle.

Setting that aside, I appreciate Briski’s attempt to make these kids feel like artists for a day, and feel the fulfillment that can only be felt by an artist expressing his or her gift.

But what’s wrong here is that the cameras require them to become as detached from their experience as we are here, in the States, watching this documentary. It removes the very subjects of the film from their world, and we feel ourselves becoming even more distanced from what their lives must be like.

Here’s my question: Outside of two shots of the line of prostitutes working the streets, and a few arguments, where is the real story of this world – the world we hear referenced in one anecdote, where a pimp can set a prostitute on fire? Why are we focusing on the photography classes, when this is their bubble of safety in a world of shit?

Why are we only seeing the world through their, idealized eyes?

What we’re missing here – and perhaps what was impossible to find – is context. I felt like this film was a collage of resilient children dealing with despair, without an adequate exploration of that despair.

And while the film is important, and noteworthy, it is hardly something revelatory. It will induce empathy for these kids, but not for this society. And it’s a pity too – since it only feels like Briski and Kauffman had to turn their camera 90 degrees to get it right.

MOVIE WEB PAGE

IMDB WEB PAGE

Showtimes

Movies @ Zertinet | Oscars @ Zertinet | Main Site
IMDB | Moviefone | Movie Review Query Engine
Contact Us | Subscribe | Unsubscribe

Best Viewed at 800 X 600 or greater
Design by David Johnson