jotyler65 Reviews

Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids (2004)

Moving but flawed Documentary

[7/10 · 4 March 2005]

It would certainly take a filmmaker of much self-consciousness, something which Zana Briski certainly possesses, to make this film the way she has. Having met with uncooperative roadblocks to shooting a documentary about sex-workers and their families within the squalid confines of Calcutta's red-light district, Briski states early on that she decides to have the children themselves tell their story by supplying them with automatic cameras to use in their own personal ways. The film, however, ultimately becomes an account of one outsider's attempt to save these children from their miserable fates - poverty and sexual abuse. With the children's sex-worker mothers and families, many of whom have apparently spent generations in the district with no escape in sight, used as background elements, Briski focuses solely on the children, entering them into an informal photography seminar where they gather to share contact sheets of their pictures and discuss the problems of shooting amidst uncooperative and hostile subjects and why certain pictures work and why some don't. Thankfully, Briski also interviews the children, and while it's not clear they understand her theories on picture composition, they are, despite being denied education and living amidst fairly brutal conditions of abuse, poverty and indentured servitude, very perceptive and wise to the unfortunate conditions in which they live, their prospects and possess an awareness of the possibilities of life outside of the district. Briski becomes further involved with the children by trying to enter them into school, though most will not accept them because they are the children of sex workers. Indeed, it is the indifference of Indian authorities to the children's plight as much as the abuse they receive from their depraved parents that shocks the viewer. Briski, with some help from some photographic arts people in the United States and Amnesty International, is able to use the children's pictures as a commercial vehicle to raise money to enable them to enroll in a private boarding school (the kids are well aware that education is their only way out of the brothels). Here, Briski's movement somewhat takes over the movie from her subjects, proving how futile western notions of compassionate aid often are to endemic and grave third-world situations like we witness here. This is driven home when of the kids accepted into the boarding school, only one eventually remains because of the economic pressures put upon their families in which the children essentially act as indentured servants, performing household tasks day and night and odd jobs for additional income. So, while the film becomes a parade for Briski's noble cause, I would have liked to have seen more background and interaction between the children and their surroundings, other than simply as child photographers who have been given a brief and, for most of them, fleeting reprieve from their depraved surroundings.

Bad Education (2004)

Slightly Disappointing Melodrama

[6/10 · 4 March 2005]

I was slightly disappointed in Pedro Almodóvar's latest melodrama, Bad Education, if only because the director has raised the bar so high with recent films Talk to Her, All About My Mother and Live Flesh. I think the subject for this film, Almodóvar's distasteful education at the hands of pedophilic priests, would have been better suited as a satire along the lines of early-career films like What Have We Done To Deserve This? Here, Almodóvar uses this theme as a background to a somewhat intricate and murderous plot involving two estranged childhood friends. While the film shows the powerful effects of childhood victimization, it primarily serves as a melodramatic thriller. In other words, Almodóvar's "bad education" is not the subject of the film, but only a springboard for melodrama and mystery. As for satire, the only humorous line in the film comes at a shocking dramatic moment so that your laugh is caught in your throat. The plot unravels in layers like a slowly peeling onion, the debased story unfolding as the film progresses. I thought Gael García Bernal has done better work, especially in The Motorcycle Diaries and The Crimes of Padre Amaru. I would have loved to see Almodóvar film this earlier in his career as a satire with a young Antonio Banderes playing Bernal's parts. The film's most intriguing character, a strung-out heroin addict played by Francisco Boira, doesn't appear until the final twenty minutes of the film. Fele Martinez, as the filmmaker Enrique (and Almodóvar's double), saves his best acting for this stretch as well.. While the film moves inexorably toward tragedy, it does not carry the emotional and thematic resonance that Almodóvar's recent films have achieved. All told, I'd like to see this film again, because I never felt like I was really pulled into the film until Boira's character arrives. I must confess I even nodded off for ten minutes or so as I saw the film late at night.

Cracker: Mind Over Murder (1997–1998)

Excellent Psychological Crime Series

[14 July 2004]

I wanted to comment in response to the many negative reviews of this compelling show written by those who enjoyed the original British series. While I unfortunately missed that series, this American version is dynamic, penetrating and entirely undeserving of being cancelled. Robert Pastorelli gives a daring, captivating central performance as Fitz, the cynical and self-destructive anti-hero whose gambling obsession and rough persona alienate his wife (Carolyn McCormick) and son (a young Josh Hartnett!) Fitz' demented persona make him a natural for his part-time work as a police profiler, where he maintains a tenuous relationship with the equally blunt Lt. Fry (R. Lee Ermey). Fitz is an intriguing fallen hero - up to the task of catching disturbed, violent murderers but unable to command his own inner demons which tear at the very fabric of his being. Pastorelli's intensely uncompromising performance gives the show a realistic, darkly humorous edge which is ultimately touching. Fitz' character foreshadows that of Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), whose dark, telepathic gifts cost him his family on Chris Carter's equally compelling crime series 'Millennium." Both characters need the close embrace of their families - it is what they live for - but because of their disturbing professions and intense persona's alienate their loved ones, spiritually self-destructing even as they desperately seek redemption. While this Cracker may have fallen short of the original English series - I wouldn't know - it was a breath of fresh air on typically sanitized American television and ultimately proved to be too daring to continue.