Posted: 01/15/2005

Born Into Brothels

(2004)

by Hank Yuloff

“There is nothing called hope in my future.”

“One has to accept life as being painful.”

The possibility of my uttering either of these two expressions as a child was about the same as the possibility of my becoming as rich as Bill Gates now. Yet, there they were on screen, two Indian children in Calcutta’s red light district, saying these things to filmmaker Zana Briski in her new documentary Born into Brothels.

Briski spent years in India, compiling a portrait of several children whose mothers worked as prostitutes. The children were very intrigued by her camera so as an experiment, she gave each of the eight youngsters a point and shoot camera of there own. As she taught them how to take photographs, she also noticed their simultaneously looking at the world with different eyes.

In the process of learning photography, the children come to know the world outside the red light district. They take street scenes, visit the zoo and the beach and learn there is possibly more to their future than the bleakness they have learned in their first 10 to 12 years. As she became increasingly concerned for the children’s futures, Briski begins what will be a monumental task: getting the kids out of the brothels.

Most of the children do not attend school regularly, and their options are limited to state-run institutions that in may cases, will not take the children of prostitutes. In fact, fighting her efforts are the parents and relatives of some of the children who wonder when the children will stop the foolishness and “work the line” like their older relatives. So Briski’s efforts are expanded to find boarding schools willing to take in the children. The film shows Briski attempting to navigate the labyrinth of bureaucracy of India, searching for birth certificates, ration cards, and other identification documents. Watching the pen and carbon paper method to the madness made the viewer feel the frustration she experienced. The wonderful musical tracks helped complete the feeling and place us in the city with the children.

We get to see several dozen of the children’s photographs in the film. Many are very good, though my photographer’s eye questioned whether they were great shots, or that it was factored in that a child of such means taking the photograph that made them so good. My thought is that for anyone who lives in an apartment that rivals my walk-in closet for size and the local dump for cleanliness to be able to learn the art of photography has got to be special.

At 85 minutes, Born into Brothels is concise and direct in its story telling. Intriguing and educationally entertaining are the phrases I would use to describe the movie. It should not be missed.

Opens in LA January 28 with national roll out in February.

Hank Yuloff is our senior staff writer living in Los Angeles.

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