born into brothels.

i checked my suburban curbside mailbox this afternoon in hopes of a netflix delivery. expecting the brown bunny, a controversial movie i queued exclusively for the scene in which chloe sevigny performs oral sex on her co-star vincent gallo. instead, i received born into brothels, an osar winning documentary about the children of sex workers in calcutta's red light district.

the documentary is absolutely poetic & quite subtle. it hums along with traditional indian percussion in the background. i'm always taken by the purity of children. the movie follows zana briski, a photographer, who moves to the red light district to film the lives of sex workers. she, much like i was, instead became captivated by the children who bear the weight of the world on their shoulders.

being one to play favorites, i was drawn to shanti, an 11 year old with a toothy grin and a gold nose ring in her left nostril. she is an around the way girl of a different cloth. shanti would punch her younger brother affectionately & smirk in his face.

called "zana auntie" by the children, zana, the narrator, teaches the children how to photograph their environment in addition to teaching them basic english.

the success of the documentary is that the narratives of the children are told apart from their extended families. this effectively turns the indian sense of family and allegiance backwards and on its head. this is a truly beautiful film.