Oh, great, you
figure. With a title like Born Into Brothels, you're
really in for a fun ride at the movies. Far from being a
grim and gruelling day in the bowels of Documentary Land,
however, the breezily paced movie turns out to be a heartening,
almost exhilarating journey into worlds unknown and well
worth knowing.
The
movie immediately zeroes in on eight Calcutta urchins who
would likely be no-hopers if photographer Zana Briski hadn't
handed them 35mm cameras and then stood back to see what
clicks. Suddenly the children of prostitutes and drug addicts
get an angle on the world, and their point of view is literally
validated by the experience.
One
of the film's central strengths is the speed with which it
establishes the highly developed personalities of its protagonists,
such as shy Kochi, assertive Shanti, and her impish brother
Manik, who prefers to fly kites and puts up with his hash-smoking,
ne'er-do-well father. "I try to love him a little,"
he says manfully.
The mothers
try to love the kids a little too. They are more or less
supportive of Briski's project, but you've never seen tongues
like the whips that lash out of these two-rupee hookers.
Although the camera is present, they appear quite comfortable
unloading epithets on their children and on one another
that would make a Russian sailor blush.
The kids take
it and move on, but there are snags. Even as the children
are empowered as artists, they meet resistance from family
members, neighbors, and especially bureaucrats, who seem
to throw up a hurdle every time Briski finds an opportunity
for her students to travel or attend boarding schools --
-the surest ticket out of the urban armpit called Sonagachi.
In particular,
the film's story largely revolves around Avijit, a born
artist with a Buddha belly and seen-it-all eyes who first
faces family tragedy and then runs into government obstacles
(ironically, after his photos are recognized as being a
cut above the class's already high standards). His struggle
is the stuff of high drama, but Briski and her codirector,
Ross Kauffman, don't milk the big moments for unearned sentiment.
There's plenty
of emotion, anyway, in the mixture of fresh faces, desperately
poor surroundings, and pulse-racing Indian music (used to
most exhilarating effect during the kids' one-off bus trip
to the beach).
Some critics
have faulted the film for not making Calcutta's horrors
horrible enough. But we already know about this level of
poverty; what we get less of, in everyday life and in visits
to the multiplex, is the sense of how much wealth is hidden
in the muck, and how much difference one person with open
eyes can make.
Born
Into Brothels
is directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman.
