Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004)

Very Cool!!!

Absolutely Brilliant!

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

If you thought Slumdog Millionaire was bad and degrading to the name of a great nation this film certainly adds to the mix. Directors go in search of some of the worst and most degrading parts of India. Their mission in making these films is simple, lets go out and find the worst possible aspect of India and further put down a country in order to claim some praise and Oscars. Forget the fact that India has a rich history and full of great and inspirational stories. It has had many emperors, empires, poets and even contains one of the 7 wonders of the world. Even today despite its population issues it has wide urban development in cities and growing middle classes. But lets forget all of this and drive past all of it so we can find some slum in a remote part or search for something even worse. To hell with making an accurate portrayal of a country lets smear it and bring it down with horrific tales. I wish I could give this a 0 out of 10. Shameful and shocking.

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to be moved a little by the kids and their circumstances in this story. Born into Brothels serves as sort of a basic litmus test for empathy: if you can't say to yourself 'that could've been me, in some other time or place or by some other stroke of chance or luck or what have you', then you shouldn't go near these movies (or perhaps movies in general). Its heart is squarely in the right place as one-time director Zana Briski (she didn't do anything before or since really, as filmmaking isn't exactly her forte so much as photography) goes into a part of Calcutta where brothels run rampant and there's no police - kids work from the age of whenever the parent (if there even is one) decides so, and school is usually a luxury or a privilege. If there's anything of an arc to the film it's following who may get into one school or another, or if one may get into a photo competition in Amsterdam.I may have skipped over the obvious of the premise - Calcutta kids get cameras and take pictures of their surroundings. Simple enough, and to be sure many of them take wonderful photographs that carry actual artistry and (as noted in the film) attention to composition. I was reminded following these kids a little of the film Hoop Dreams, which also is about kids growing up in poor neighborhoods and who may get the chance to move on with their lives by a combination of luck and hard work and tenacity (or if life doesn't get in the way, which it invariably does).Though it may have been impractical, I wished there was more to this movie than there is (or maybe, in some years time and it hasn't happened yet, the approach of the "Up" series where we see the kids 7/8 years later and so on). The directors take so much time to set up the kids, but it's not like they are very varied; where 'Dreams' had two young people, this has seemingly about 10 or maybe a dozen (I lost count to be honest). They're charming and easy enough to watch - my first thought once the documentary ended is that this is the lightest/fluffiest film about poverty-stricken youth I can remember seeing - but they're not distinctive enough to carry a movie that is so short. With more development or time to see their life stories, there might be something more as far as *narrative* goes.There are conflicts and tragedies, to be sure (one kid's mother is killed by her pimp, and it seems to be just another day in the red light district, again no justice either), and when the kids are seen in the midst of the aggressively-mouthed adults around them there's tension (there's a reason this is Rated-R so be warned if you decide to show this to your kids). But at the end of the day it really is more important as a social document than as a piece of cinema that you MUST see. It may help change how you see certain things with Calcutta - maybe some will come with the impression of the place as being only one way with one group of people, and here it's all about what options people have really, which is a good distinction the movie makes - and there's some nice/pretty photos to look at. Good but not great.

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.While this is not necessarily the best documentary I have ever seen, or even on a subject I particularly care about, I must say it is a shocking subject matter that few are aware of. Prostitution has its supporters and detractors, but the conditions in Calcutta are awful and it is no place for children to be growing up if their mothers are prostitutes.This is everything that is wrong with prostitution. Maybe if done right, in Nevada or the Netherlands, it is a necessary evil. But in India it appears to just be an evil, no necessity about it.

If you are looking for a 'feel good' movie or one that gives you a strong feeling of hope, then you probably should not watch "Born into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids". It's a generally depressing film and offers a few tiny rays of hope by the end of the film...but only a few.Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman traveled to India and befriended a group of children and their families living in the brothels of Calcutta, India. How exactly they arranged all this is not mentioned in the film--it just begins with Zana spending time with a group of eight of these kids. She has taught them to use cameras and they are chronicling their lives in a crappy neighborhood--living amongst poverty and depravity. The filmmakers are not social workers--just filmmakers and photographers. Through the course of the film, Zana spends much of her time not just instructing the kids on photography and taking them on outings. She also tries to get the kids in boarding schools as well as one special kid a chance to go to an international photography conference in the Netherlands. But, despite her best efforts, the kids and their families have this strong pull--a pull to keep them in the gutters and on track to repeat the family pattern of prostitution, drug abuse and early death.Overall, an oddly compelling and ultimately depressing documentary. However, it is not without merit and I can see how it won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. It is well constructed and fascinating...and quite sad.