Born
Into Brothels (***)
review by Jon
Waterman
A British photographer heads to Calcutta for her latest project.
She has lived with the women of the red light district for
some time now, getting to know them artistically and personally.
She’s also gotten to know their children. Determined
to give these children, who are doomed to life as a prostitute
(if female) or black market merchant (if male), some semblance
of hope. She begins teaching them photography. It soon becomes
apparent how truly different the world can look through the
eyes of a child.
Zana Briski (the kids call her Auntie) and behind the camera
only Ross Kauffman collaborate to bring you this interesting
documentary. What come across better than anything else are
the personality traits of all the children. For the most part,
all of them are given equal screen time, because their individual
plights and experiences are varied enough to warrant that,
despite coming from the same destitute area. The movie does
a wonderful job of showing us the individual rather than just
an individual in a particular situation. I didn’t see
enough of that on Zana’s side. It always seemed like
a project. So much time was devoted to the kids that her personality
didn’t shine through enough to complete the circle. Also,
I didn’t see as much group cohesion as I would have liked.
Maybe the camaraderie between the kids just wasn’t there
to capture to begin with.
Unfortunately, the parents and grandparents are largely absent
in the film, despite the massive impact they have in real life.
There are plenty of insightful interviews with the children.
There has to be equally poignant material that could be derived
from talking to their parents. That shouldn’t be such
a hard request to fill considering how close the filmmaker
is with them.
Lastly, I want to mention the photography. Just like with
everyone, some of it’s good and some of it’s not.
Perhaps this is harsh, but I think some of the screen time
devoted to showcasing the photography in stills with musical
accompaniment should be cut – especially since we’ve
seen most of the photographs prior to that during the class
session discussions and when the work is exhibited at galleries.
Overall, they know how to work the camera and produce some
pretty amazing shots.
I suppose my biggest problem is that the movie is only 85
minutes long and it deserves to be a mini-series. There are
so many avenues and so many factors that go into what ultimately
happens to the kids that deserve to be explored, but can’t
due to time constraints. Plus, who after watching this film
wouldn’t want to see regular progress reports and updates?
Ultimately, the documentary is too unwieldy and too broad for
such a short time span. I want more.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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