Red Light Kid Film Analysis
Life in a Negative
A close-up of Puja’s eyes, an 11-year-old Indian girl, begins to introduce, with bold, unapologetic candor, her friends and their daily routine in the red-light district of Calcutta. With the help of a melancholic Indian score a slide show of photo stills, images of Puja and her friends, taken by them over the course of the documentary creates an appreciation for the complex realism of a concealed place existing in India today. Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids is a film directed by Ross Kauffman and photographer Zana Briski which artistically navigates through the lives of eight Indian children living in the brothels of Calcutta but in the process exposes the children to a different distress.
While living …show more content…
The girls are in danger of getting sold to men, forced into marriage, as early as age 11 or be made to "work the line." This seemingly matriarchal society shows a grandmother starting a countdown for her granddaughter and her attempts to persuade her to view it as a rite of passage. The same grandmother later insists that her granddaughter, Puja, is worth more at home working than at school and halts the mission to get her out of harm’s way. Zana's intentions, while commendable, have a heartbreaking result when it is revealed that the girls were unable to stay in the boarding school. Was the quick environmental change overbearing for these emotionally unequipped girls as they decided to return to their customary surrounding? One can assume this predictable result by the scared faces as they left their families in haste and because Zana is not a child psychologist, but a photographer. The children, accustomed to doing what they want, have little to no structure. Attending and living in schools with rigid schedules can be an overwhelming responsibility to any …show more content…
Roger Ebert promotes the film on his website without patching the fragmented images together. The film, set in Calcutta, India, momentarily makes the viewer want to provide aid for its innocent children who through no fault of their own are stuck in a downward cycle and bound to the red-light life. The director, Zana, shows us their reality and is able to help one of the eight children, a male, who would've most likely become a prostitute, pimp, or an addict. The documentary becomes a quest that fails to examine Pandora’s box as it exploits the children to examine their tough cycle.
Works Cited
Ashurenasirpal. "Born Into Brothels - India - Part – 1-6." YouTube. YouTube, 26 June 2011. Web. 14 July 2016.
Ebert, Roger. "Born into Brothels Movie Review." RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC, 10 Feb. 2005. Web. 17 July 2016.
Roston, Tom. "Doc Soup: What Happened To… Avijit." POV's Documentary Blog. PBS, 29 Mar. 2010. Web. 16 July
A close-up of Puja’s eyes, an 11-year-old Indian girl, begins to introduce, with bold, unapologetic candor, her friends and their daily routine in the red-light district of Calcutta. With the help of a melancholic Indian score a slide show of photo stills, images of Puja and her friends, taken by them over the course of the documentary creates an appreciation for the complex realism of a concealed place existing in India today. Born into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids is a film directed by Ross Kauffman and photographer Zana Briski which artistically navigates through the lives of eight Indian children living in the brothels of Calcutta but in the process exposes the children to a different distress.
While living …show more content…
The girls are in danger of getting sold to men, forced into marriage, as early as age 11 or be made to "work the line." This seemingly matriarchal society shows a grandmother starting a countdown for her granddaughter and her attempts to persuade her to view it as a rite of passage. The same grandmother later insists that her granddaughter, Puja, is worth more at home working than at school and halts the mission to get her out of harm’s way. Zana's intentions, while commendable, have a heartbreaking result when it is revealed that the girls were unable to stay in the boarding school. Was the quick environmental change overbearing for these emotionally unequipped girls as they decided to return to their customary surrounding? One can assume this predictable result by the scared faces as they left their families in haste and because Zana is not a child psychologist, but a photographer. The children, accustomed to doing what they want, have little to no structure. Attending and living in schools with rigid schedules can be an overwhelming responsibility to any …show more content…
Roger Ebert promotes the film on his website without patching the fragmented images together. The film, set in Calcutta, India, momentarily makes the viewer want to provide aid for its innocent children who through no fault of their own are stuck in a downward cycle and bound to the red-light life. The director, Zana, shows us their reality and is able to help one of the eight children, a male, who would've most likely become a prostitute, pimp, or an addict. The documentary becomes a quest that fails to examine Pandora’s box as it exploits the children to examine their tough cycle.
Works Cited
Ashurenasirpal. "Born Into Brothels - India - Part – 1-6." YouTube. YouTube, 26 June 2011. Web. 14 July 2016.
Ebert, Roger. "Born into Brothels Movie Review." RogerEbert.com. Ebert Digital LLC, 10 Feb. 2005. Web. 17 July 2016.
Roston, Tom. "Doc Soup: What Happened To… Avijit." POV's Documentary Blog. PBS, 29 Mar. 2010. Web. 16 July