Simply Perfect

Simply A Masterpiece

Just perfect...

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Directed by Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman this is not an observational documentary with the filmmakers as detached bystanders.In 1997 photographer Zana Briski went to the red light district Calcutta to document the lives of the sex workers. She lived among them, to gain their confidence and realised that the children of the sex workers were at risk of following them into a life of prostitution and drugs.Briski provided the children with cameras, set up classes in photography and got them to take pictures of their lives in their harsh environment as well as trying to take them out it. It would not be long before the children would be forced into prostitution so Briski wanted them to get education but it was not easy.There are some wonderful shots in this film , not surprisingly given Briski's background in photography. However the documentary came across as disjointed and even mawkish. I also found the music to be poor. We see very little about the women that Briski planned to document apart from one scene where there was a little cursing but no idea why or what they were arguing about. The filmmakers became more concerned about the well being of the kids.At the end she did find schools for the kids but not all stayed there. Some years on, several of the kids now grown up ended up studying in America.

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.

This movie makes me cry, but not for the reasons the filmmakers intended. Briski and Kauffman represent the situation of sex workers' children in this poor Indian district in the most un-ethical and violent way possible -- by laying the blame at the heroic, unionized sex-worker moms that have managed to carve out a safe space for their families, under the kind of conditions that would beat any westerner down, and most reprehensibly, by using the families to raise themselves to be saints in the audiences' mind. In doing so they undermine the very children they supposedly want to help, and dupe Westerners whose only access to information like this is through mainstream /Oscar flicks. I second the advice of a viewer who urges audiences instead watch the film Tales of the Night Fairies, a more caring and truthful representation. Don't depend on my opinion here --- please paste into a search engine Born into Brothels, Praveen Swami, Seema Sirohi or Partha Banerjee to read incisive critique of the film by more knowledgeable folks - people who worked translating it, know the district, or report on the Indian Frontline's investigation of the filmmakers unethical behavior.The fact that the Sonagachi Red Light District where Briski et al filmed is not only the focus of MANY hardworking aid organizations (which Briski edits out, one can only assume to portray herself as the only bright shining angel) but also a case studied globally for its successes preventing HIV infection, for how women established workers cooperatives .....to collectively ensure their rights and safety (instead of being controlled by pimps), and strict community rules not to force anyone into prostitution... will astonish viewers who have seen the film. There is no way the filmmakers could not know this, or that these women began a trade union that has grown to 60,000 members far beyond this small district. In fact, the filmmakers treat these women as the cause of the children's problems, and recommend removal of the children from their families! That Briski is British, thus from India's the former colonial power, and that she recommends a removal policy without realizing that it repeats colonial violence done in other British colonies (such as the forcible kidnapping of aborigine children in Australia in 1911 by whiter skinned people who could not imagine indigenous people capable of bringing up children) makes me wonder if it might not be BRISKI, rather than the brothel kids, who has been neglected and denied a proper education.Viewers need to know that an investigation by the Indian media Frontline showed that the film's most fundamental assumptions were false, particularly Briski's assertion that the children no education, or very little before she sent them to boarding school. In fact, ALL THE KIDS WERE GOING TO SCHOOL WHEN THE DOCUMENTARY WAS BEING MADE! It is a testament to Briski's own ignorance and misuse of rich white power that none of the cases in which she "removed" kids to boarding school have resulted in success or continuation. This is because the kids know what the sadly uneducated Briski cannot see, that their families are more than props in a gringa film. That Briski dupes Western audiences into misunderstanding the real issues in India's brothels, that she bathes in the limelight and accepts Academy Awards built on this exploitation, that she presents unethical hidden camera footage taken without these poor women's consent, that she so sneakily betrays these people who had nothing, but generously shared every single intimate part of their lives with this "savior" should alert us that somewhere, in England, children are growing up like Briski --- without being given the basic historical knowledge they so desperately need.Lets make a film about Briski's home town, use hidden cameras to show her friends in the worst light, and give it Bollywood's biggest award so we can finally remove poor rich white filmmakers from their neglectful colonialist parents, and give them to caring Calcuttans who will see that they receive the uncensored education they so desperately need.In all seriousness: This "research" would never have survived an ethics review board investigation, and suggests that we demand stronger accountability and oversight of filmmakers to ensure ethical treatment of their subjects, especially in places where people may not have access to enforcing such accountability.A better use for this film, and one that I use in my undergraduate classes, is to have students FIRST read Partha Banerjee's letter to the American Film Academy about the film's lack of ethics, and then watch BitB. Students marvel that the Oscar ignored his plea and awarded this film! I'll keep a DVD of this film in my college collection of ethnocentric diatribe classics such as "Warrior Marks" and "Not without my daughter" (apologies to Gidget). Like those films it embodies Gayatri Spivack's observation that so much of what passes as Western humanitarianism is less about helping victims and more about the image of "White men saving brown women from brown men" (in this case White women "saving" brown kids from brown women).Please, lets set up a humanitarian fund to provide history classes to the poor, abused children of Britain that, like Briski, are at risk of becoming narcissistic missionary filmmakers that exploit the third world. They should not be doomed to repeat the colonial mistakes of the past, simply because they have not listened well in history class.

Never has there been a more gross misuse of wording than in the title of this film. This is little more than a showcase of Briski's "forward thinking" self righteous presence and overrated photography. This woman taught a group of children, living in squalor and facing starvation how to use a camera. Yes, a C A M E R A! As if the ability to shoot nice little pictures was going to help them rise above their situation and do better for themselves. Tell me Zana, if one of said children decided to take up such a lovely hobby...how would they get their pictures developed? How would they afford the film? The brothel/prostitution aspect is brought up very little. The very word "Brothel" was probably mentioned all of three times. The film doesn't delve into how the mothers ended up there, assault/battery, child prostitution or anything of substance.This is about the nice white lady who rolled out of bed one day and decided to showcase her benevolent spirit. But what she gave them was nothing. A useless hobby that was forgotten by the time she boarded her plane back to New York. While she's sipping cocktails somewhere in Midtown Manhattan congratulating herself on her selfless deeds and how she's helped those poor little brown children, a 10yr old girl is probably having her virginity auctioned off to the highest bidder...a 50 yr old man.