classicsoncall There's a reason I read a handful of positive and negative reviews for each film I watch before I post my own. This one draws severe criticism from more than a handful of reviewers who totally castigate the filmmakers and virtually everything about it - the editing, the choice of location, even the motives of the principals. Many of them, and not surprisingly in this age of 'white guilt', attempt to shame the principals for self aggrandizement while citing their vaunted position as members of an elite minority class.By merely watching this documentary, none of those thoughts ever entered my head. Can it be such a bad thing that Zana Briski took a handful of underprivileged kids under her wing and attempted to show them there was an outlet for their creativity, and perhaps a way out of their situation? Most of these children felt resigned to taking up the same life as their parents, while realizing that it was an immeasurably bad one. When 'Zana Auntie' asked the young girl Suchitra "Do you see any solution to all this?", the answer was a resounding "No". One of the boys in the film gave a starker reply later on - "There is nothing called 'hope' in my future".With all that, it was so disheartening to learn at the end of the film that most of the kids featured returned in some measure to their prior life. Manik's father - didn't allow him to go to school. Puja's mother - withdrew her from the Sabena School. Shanti left on her own. Gour went back to live at home and wanted to attend the University. Tapasi ran away from home to attend a girl's school. Suchitra's aunt wouldn't let her leave the brothel. Only Kochi remained at Sabena.All you critics, ask yourself - "Where are these kids now?"

MisterWhiplash 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.

trivium105 I just want to make it clear from the start that I only got about 35 mins out of 90 into this documentary before turning it off as I couldn't take any more. So, if the film radically changed from that point on then maybe this review is inaccurate, but I doubt that it did, although perhaps the second director did a better job.What we see is a middle class white woman with a half American, half English accent, elbowing her way into the homes of children of prostitutes in Calcutta's red light district, uninvited, something that anyone could do. The children are naturally fascinated by her, and especially by the free cameras she hands out. The attention they give her seems to make her believe there is a connection between her and the kids. She then decides she is their tutor and starts teaching them photography basics, even getting frustrated when these starving, desperate children have the audacity to forget some of the tips she has given them. We then have half an hour of disconnected, random footage of the kids taking pictures of various everyday scenes. There is no engaging thread of any sort running through the film, and the director enjoys getting her contrived sad expression on camera often, despite her total lack of screen-presence. She visits a few charitable places to ask if anyone will take the kids, the answer is no. Great! The footage in this opening half hour can only be shocking if you are totally naive about poverty in the world. There was no evidence the children of prostitutes are any worse off than your average poor Indian child, in fact they are better off than many purely as they have a roof over their heads. The only added pressure seems to be the vague intimations that the children may end up as prostitutes as well.I see a wannabe director who saw a great chance to try and portray herself as saving the world by forcing herself onto people in desperate situations. Based on the first half hour, I am utterly amazed this won an Oscar as I see a complete absence of any talent ; it comes across as a documentary literally anyone with a few cameras could make.

MartinHafer 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.