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The documenting of real life brings with it profound ethical questions that don't usually exist for the narrative filmmaker. The most basic question is, which subject is worth filming? This is an incredible question that most moviegoers don't think about. A documentary filmmaker is, if she does her job well, going to spend years working on a particular project, and so the first question might be the most important. But there are other, just as difficult questions to raise: what should I show? how do I present a person's life in a two-hour film? what do I leave out? how does the presence of the camera affect this person's life? should I acknowledge my own role in the process?

These questions are obviously ones that Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman struggled with as they made Born into Brothels. This documentary about eight children in the brothels of Calcutta grew out of Briski's own experiences of living there. She is a Western photojournalist who decided to photograph the women who live and work in the red-light district in that sprawling Indian city. Because the women were naturally hesitant and reserved, Briski made the choice to live in the brothel herself. There she met a number of children, who were much more accessible and interested in her work. Briski was inspired to teach the children how to take and edit photographs, and her experiences with that project launched the documentary film.

The film introduces us to the children early on--five girls and three boys between the ages of 10 and 14 years old. All of them have the wonderful smiles and innate curiosity that are the hallmarks of children around the world. Each one also has a way with a camera, as we see in the still photographs that the movie routinely presents. The children's ability to capture the streets of the red light district and the people who live there is striking.

Hovering over the children and their photography class, though, is their future. As one girl remarks in an early voiceover, "The men who come to our building are not so good, and the women ask when I'm going to join the line." The "line" is the metaphor for prostitution, but we soon see the metaphor made real, as Kauffman's camera surreptitiously films a long line of Calcutta's women (some as young as 14) standing and waiting in the streets as the men check out the wares. While the boys don't have that horrific fate awaiting them, they don't have much to look forward to. Avijit, the most talented boy in the bunch, ponders, "If I could go somewhere else and get education, I wonder what I could become." The response, though, lies in the conversation Briski has with 14-year-old Suchitra. "Do you see any solution to this?" the woman asks. Suchitra stares into space with the most heart-breaking expression on her face and finally shakes her head no.

Born into Brothels is certainly a compelling work and one likely to bring tears to your eyes. And its noble goals of raising awareness of the problem and money for a solution are worth celebrating. So I encourage you to head up to the Landmark theater this weekend when the movie opens.

Still, my praise has to be qualified, for Born into Brothels is also a frustrating work, particularly if you're a fan of documentaries. I don't mind the fuzzy digital video camerawork, as that goes with the territory. But I do mind the movie's lack of context. While the film is ostensibly a portrait of particular children in a particular place, it doesn't do much to explore the place itself. There are few interviews with the children's family members, and therefore the brief explosions of rage that the camera does capture are hard to understand. Furthermore, there's no attempt to situate the red light district within Calcutta itself. My friend Garth compared Born into Brothels to Bus 174, an appropriate comparison, but that movie did a much better job of helping us to understand the larger context of Rio de Janeiro as well as the class differences involved.

Born into Brothels doesn't even properly explain one of its primary themes--education. Briski spends much of the last half of the movie trying to get the children out of the brothels and into boarding schools. At first it appears that the children aren't receiving any education at all, but later on there are indications that the children do go to school. So are the boarding schools just a way to get the children out of their corrosive environment, or is there something substantially different about that kind of education?

It doesn't help that the focus of the movie's last half shifts somewhat from the children to Briski herself, as she takes on the heroic task of actually changing the children's lives. But no matter how admirable that is, there's still something awkward about the white Westerner coming to save the day and thereby deflecting the spotlight onto herself. It's clear that the bureaucratic chaos of Calcutta is profoundly frustrating, but it's dangerous when the film appears to equate Briski's own difficulties with those of her subjects. Especially when Briski doesn't seem to acknowledge the ethical, class, and racial dynamics involved.

Still, to complain too much would be churlish and even unseemly. Born into Brothels is an eye-opening film, a work that should be seen and appreciated for what it is--an attempt to show a world few have seen before. 

J. Robert Parks   2/6/2005