Sorry, this movie sucks

Sick Product of a Sick System

An action-packed slog

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Two documentary filmmakers chronicle their time in Sonagchi, Calcutta and the relationships they developed with children of prostitutes who work the city's notorious red light district.While this is not necessarily the best documentary I have ever seen, or even on a subject I particularly care about, I must say it is a shocking subject matter that few are aware of. Prostitution has its supporters and detractors, but the conditions in Calcutta are awful and it is no place for children to be growing up if their mothers are prostitutes.This is everything that is wrong with prostitution. Maybe if done right, in Nevada or the Netherlands, it is a necessary evil. But in India it appears to just be an evil, no necessity about it.

I felt shudders after watching this documentary. I belong to Kolkata (Calcutta), and all Kolkatans know this place exists. We have accepted this devil's den in the center of the city and do nothing about it whatsoever as we feel it is not our job. I never gave it a thought until now that there could be children out there being dragged into this racket. I am moved and stirred. The little children are so naive, so pure , so innocent that it makes my heart wrench. The harsh reality is it takes a lot of courage and endurance to move out of the influence of this sucking hole. Some struggle it out and flourish while others are lost in oblivion.

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.

Feel very disappointed and quite angry about what I saw: we get no information at all but the outsider's ethnocentrism effort to make good stuff with a carefully construction of "Otherness", "poverty" and, of course "India". How about the general context, the structural mechanisms of social exclusion and exploitation??? How about the children's voices? Where are they? I only can heard the mute voice of a children completely admonished to tell about the adult-western wishes.Nothing to say about the "story" what is been writing for them.... (without them). Where are the children's stakeholders in Calcuta? They are "left" only with this women's help and hopes? Reflexivity and postmodernism are not this. Out there we can get arguments, multiplicity of voices, pathways of power and counter-power, history, ethnostories... but, of course, it is required some conceptual tools - say anthropology -, methodological gadgets and a clear philosophy or philosophical points of reference to start with. Instead we only see philanthropy - a lot of - and a cool project, for cool people with cool intentions, liberal and western intentions... And the world does not stop turning... you feel me?