Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Fine Feel good Oscar winner
Not sure why last year's nominees for best documentary sort of fell in the "feel good" category, while the previous year's nominees were about self-discovery, reflection, and the Vietnam War (2 films riffed off of our war history including the winner). Overall would still rate the 2003 nominees as the best group of documentaries ever, so a tough act to follow for this year's group. Still this film was far more substantive than the other 2 nominees I've seen Weeping Camel (truly a feel good movie) & Super-Size Me (amusing Michael Moore wannabe - seems to be succeeding in that ambition).
This year's winner turned out to be less about "life in the brothels" & more about the narrator's efforts to break the children free of the trap of the brothels - one girl would have been at least the 4th generation prostitute. Didn't keep an exact count, but believe Zara was successful with ½ of the children. Would be curious to do a 7-up style follow up to see how they all turned out.
One thought that did keep coming to mind while looking at the scenes of the poverty in Calcutta & the stacks of papers in some office while the government workers were all typing documents using typewriters was "this is the emerging superpower? We're worried about them stealing our jobs?!?" India still has a long long way to go before they're one of the big boys in the economic playground.
