"Born into Brothels" Summary

  1. Was there a specific scene that got to you? Give a lot of detail. 

The whole movie spoke to me, not only the parts that could empathize but also the parts that didn't bring complete understanding of their situation. Although specifically, there were a few scenes that spoke to me. I want to directly talk about one scene though, as this scene spoke to my pathos side. I saw that what horrible things those kids were going through yet couldn't quite understand because I had never been through that. In this specific scene, one of the children was becoming completely cold to everything that was happening. He just became apathetic to everything he saw. He was giving up. Even his teacher when talking to the other schools expressed her concern for what she was noticing this child going through. By this point in the move you had seen all the work they done to get to that point, and the little boy was just not interested. I think the reason this specific scene reached out to me so intensely was being able to read in between the lines. The movie doesn't specifically tell the audience the psychology involved, but you can see it. The children were having to cross mountains and mountains of hardship to have an education and make a life for themselves. This is something that I feel most Americans take for granted. Those kids are stuck where they are and they had no choice in the matter. At nine, ten years old, they are having thoughts of acceptance that their lives are not going to get any better. They don't get childhoods. Most do not even receive the love and emotional support they need. I think it's important to remember that if we got emotionally abused, told to work all day, and did not go to school, our parents would be in trouble. This scene was perspective changing.  

   2. What surprised you? What do you think caught you off guard? 

The beginning of the documentary I was not sure I would enjoy or be able to put myself into the film. The film quality was from the early 2000's, so it was not very advance, and embarrassingly enough that held me back.  I really ended up loving this film and I am glad I stayed and finished it out. The film was extremely well thought out and filmed and kept me wanting to know more. I think I was overall surprised by how mature and intelligent the kids were. They understood the situation they were in but still managed to find joy in everyday life. 

    3. What questions remain after viewing? What feelings stayed with you after the film? Did they popup in your life in unexpected ways? When? How? What was that like? 

What happened to those kids? Where are they now? "Born into Brothels" really changed my perspective on a lot of things. I try to remain unbiased but coming from an American home, where I was always fed and taken care of, I can almost only see their situation as tragic. Although this film really made me took a big look at my own life and realize what I still need to work on and what I really should be thankful for. 

    4. What might we avoid including research in our summaries? What could go wrong? 

It might get rid or cancel out the point of the documentary. The film is specifically expressing a goal that it feels is important and necessary, there is no reason to bring our own research into it. In writing a summary, it is not supposed to be biased but remain a summary of the film you watched.