BORN INTO BROTHELS
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 2005 David N. Butterworth
*** (out of ****)
The winner of 2004's Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature,
Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman's "Born into Brothels" isn't nearly as
prurient an experience as you might expect from a movie focusing on the
plight of young children growing up in the notorious red light district
of India's Sonagachi, a highly impoverished section of Calcutta.
That's partly because of the kids themselves, on whom the
filmmakers mostly concentrate, not their fallen mothers trapped by the
unavoidable scourge of "The Line," an inevitable life of prostitution
with little if anything to prevent their hapless daughters, some not
quite teenagers already, following in their ill-fated footsteps.
Strangely enough the eight featured children--Avijit, Gour, Kochi,
Manik, Puja, Shanti, Suchitra, and Tapasi--are vibrantly alive, many
with hopes of escaping the slums and securing an all-important
education no matter how fanciful, how impossible it might sound. (Their
fathers, if they're even still alive, are invariably drug addicts,
strung out on hashish.)
The kids talk openly and unsentimentally about their lives. "The
men who enter the building are not so good," comments one. They work
hard tending house–cooking, cleaning dishes, and babysitting siblings.
As a result they are mature beyond their years–older and very much the
wiser.
"Born into Brothels" is all about second chances and the
opportunity here has been provided in the form of a simple Western tool
that many of us take for granted: a point-and-shoot camera. Briski and
Kauffman, the former of whom appears on film and works side-by-side
with the children, ask the kids of Sonagachi to tell their own story in
words and (mostly) pictures through the construct of a basic
photography class and the results are often mesmerizing, with the
children--who range in age from ten to fourteen--possessing incredible
and heretofore untapped natural talent.
Briski's original goal was to live and work among the prostitutes,
capturing the sordid surroundings and conditions that front their
illegal activities on film (no easy task to be sure). But she was
instantly drawn to the children and quickly changed her approach. In
that regard she breaks the cardinal rule of documentary filmmaking by
actually getting involved in the children's lives, attempting to
register them for boarding school, for example, and influencing some of
their decision making, such as securing a visa and other travel
documents for the 11-year-old Avijit so that he can journey to
Amsterdam to participate in a World Press Photo Foundation exhibit.
In that regard we are afforded many opportunities to witness
Calcutta's incomprehensible bureaucracy, as Zana Auntie (as the kids
call Briski) battles stubborn government officials and their endless
red tape.
What unfolds, however, is a film that, despite its scurrilous
subject matter, remains genuinely uplifting and inspiring. Whereas not
every child introduced in the film is assured a happy ending, "Born
into Brothels" paints a vivid portrait of the vibrancy of human life no
matter how squalid its environment and reinforces the oft-held notion
that one person *can* make a difference.
--
David N. Butterworth
dnb@dca.net
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online at http://members.dca.net/dnb
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