Born into Brothels 2004

Spent 83 minutes with this documentary, I had an enjoyable but also heartbreaking moments with it. I guess a lot of people have seen this famous long documentary “Born into Brothels” since it was released in 2004. But it wasn’t until this year that I knew about it. One of my Taiwanese friend brought it to me and it has Chinese subtitles.

And this was my second time watching it. But I have different thoughts this time.

It’s a story about making a change, or DREAMING about it.

The directors Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman spent years filming in Sonagachi in India, an area where thousands of sex workers. This film is a portrait of 8 to 9 children who lived in the red light district where their mothers all work as prostitutes. One thing different about this documentary is that the director was involved with the subjects and actually directed the way the story went. There’s a fine line between making movies and documentary, and they were kind of in between.

The camera revealed the life in Kolkata's red light district, Sonzgachi. That's an area where hundreds of multi-story brothels turned into a paradise for sex and money at night. However, what the directors focused on were not prostitute but their children. These kids were born to be an prostitute or drug-seller. Most of them are in severe poverty and hopeless situation. But from the moment the director Zana Briski gave each of the kids a camera, their life seemed to be changed. She taught them how to use camera to use another eye to look at the world. For those who did not receive any formal training or have any experience, the kids did an amazing job making photographs.

I love photography too and I’m so touched with the pictures they made. And it is smart to come up this idea to let these kids use cameras, because that way we would be able to understand them and their world better. In other words, they always found something on the corner that were not noticeable for us but very inspiring.

I’m glad that I watched this film second times and it was worth doing so. It helped me to pay attention to details that were easily ignored when you watched it first time. The directors inserted many still photographs in this documentary. It’s like they are filming these kids’ life, but the photographs showed the world in the kids’ eyes. However, that has formed a contrast where you can see the photographs are not that hopeless whereas the film tried to depict how bad situation they are in. That’s also where the criticism starts. After the film was released, it was not only accused of racist stereotyping and using hidden camera to present the children’s parents as uncaring one and forgot about the movement for sex workers rights. They are human being too.

The directors failed to tell us their motivation doing this film. There were only a few sentence at the beginning in the voice over ‘Some people asked me why I’m doing this, but I couldn't find a logical answer. I just feel I have connection with these women and these kids.” So she went all the way down there to let their life exposed to outer world just to fulfill her ‘connection’? The life of those sex workers has been intruded by westerners’ curiosity.

Also, I googled it to search what was happened aftermath. And it turned out that the interpreter Partha Banerjee has disputed the claim that the children’s lives have been improved. Many kids are still in bad circumstance. Some say that the lives of these kids and family were too complex to be changed by merely educating one family member in photography or by sending them to boarding school. It is good to know that there’s still someone like Zana who wants to make an effort to show us that they can make life out of prostitution, but I don't think that this goal could be completely achieved by only a filming team. A nationwide , holistic and constructive projects are more needed.

Regardless of the controversy the film is, it is still an emotional but not sensational piece. You don’t see many cliches like poverty and destitution that are common in general third-world documentary, but you can know a lot about what the kids are thinking about the present and what they dreaming about the future. They are naive but they are practical. They know that they are from red light district, a corner that is abandoned by their country and people.

The directors used a lot of slow-motion shots along with the local music, which makes audience feel like they are part of it as well. My favorite part is when the kids spent a wonderful afternoon went at the beach and went back to their home in red light district. The change of music and speed of shots make you feel that there’s a helpless moment when the kids cannot do anything about it but just returning where they are from. Though the light is very dark and low quality resolution, these shots successfully presented a world that is completely different from the lovely afternoon they just spent at the beach.

Also, at the beginning of the film it was Puja(one of the kids) who introduced other 7 main characters, which make audience know more about their thinking rather than just voice over from the directors. This whole film is about a photography class and the change of kids’ life. It’s a very courageous piece but still a lot of things that should be discussed more deeply. Sometimes I’m wondering if the directors take themselves as some lifeboat for these kids regardless their parents’ feeling. Because your impression of their parents from this film is pretty much all negative, which I think it ‘s not necessarily true. These westerners were merely giving them what they think the kids would want. When the kids were exposed to media and outer world, do you think that it’s the best for them?