kids with cameras

Temporarily switching back into movie review gear:

Born into Brothels (2004)
4 Stars

I normally dislike documentaries as too preachy. It doesn't help when one wins the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. So I gotta speak up when I find a good one.

I admit up front that I'm a sucker for cute kids. But this is no Spellbound. Brothels' subject is ever so much more sober, yet its treatment is more romanticized.

In the credits, filmmakers Briski and Kaufmann thank Satyajit Ray, and his influence on this documentary is unmistakeable. That points to what I like most about the movie: the photography. Not the kids' photos, but the cinematography. Briski and Kaufmann managed both coherency and beauty within the constraints of low light, evasive subjects, and a handheld camcorder. It is clear they are photographers first, and good ones at that. I believe their claim that they were not social workers by trade; their awkwardness with Indian society helps to ground what might otherwise by a Cinderella sob story.

But I like the personalities of the kids almost as much. Puja: the happy, outgoing one; Avijit: talented, proud, and troubled; Gour: the wise voice of sanity; Suchitra: solid as a rock. Their group photo on the video cover is a classic - I'd almost buy it just for the photo. I guess the filmmakers were either lucky or very selective to find such a loveable group in one place.

If this is politics, it is politics at its most effective. Take a real simple issue; don't overcomplicate it - present just enough of it in the most involving way possible. You've got innocent kids in a brutal situation - now milk it for all its worth. When one of the girls expresses her dislike for the "veg food" they might have to eat at the boarding school that is her chance to get out of the gutter, suddenly Super Size Me seems so trivial.