The Pentad of "Born Into Brothels"

          

           I recently viewed the documentary “Born into Brothels” in my Cross Cultural Psychology class. Kids-with-cameras.org describes the film as “A tribute to the resiliency of childhood and the restorative power of art . . . a portrait of several unforgettable children who live in the red light district of Calcutta, where their mothers work as prostitutes. Zana Briski, a New York-based photographer, gives each of the children a camera and teaches them to look at the world with new eyes.”

            This film had a surprising effect on me.  There were many moments when the young children would talk to the interviewers and would say things that were very profound.  For instance, Kochi, a young girl in the film, said “One has to accept life as being sad and painful—that is all.”  This struck me as both poetic and heartbreaking.  For children to have such an outlook on life is very disheartening. 

            Pentadic criticism has critics classify portions of artifacts into five terms: agent, act, scene, purpose, and agency.  In this particular film, the scene is the Red District in Calcutta, India.  Zana Briski is a photographer who travels to the Red District to take photographs of the culture.  While traveling here, she meets the children of the sex oracles and develops a close bond with them.  The children are the agent.  Briski sees the children’s longing to do more and be more than what their culture encourages them to be.

This longing is what creates the “act”.  Briski decides to teach the children about the art of photography.  She provides them with cameras and discusses their photographs with them and teaches them about the meaning of art.  This, however, is not the main act in the film.  The central act comes later when Briski decides to try to enroll these children in schools—particularly boarding schools outside of the red district community. 

Briski says in the film that she is not a social worker.  She did not come to this area to save the children—she only came to take photos.  But after getting to know these children and seeing their desire to be valuable members of society, she decides that she cannot walk away without trying to help them.  Her purpose is to show them that they are more than what society tells them they are.  She tries to prove to them that there is more to life than drugs, alcohol, and prostitution.  The agency, or how she goes about doing this, is by going to non-profit organizations and selling the children’s photographs. 

In this film the scene (Red Light District) and the agent (children) are the dominant “terms”.  Briski did not go to India with the intention of teaching and helping young children.  She went for herself.  It is because of the scene and the society that the children are immersed in that she decides to help.  The children are the main focus of this film.  We see each of their families and hear their individual stories.  The interviews and scenes of the children give an audience an understanding of their culture and help them to understand the work the Briski is doing in the film.  The children were not Briski’s reason for coming to India, but they because her reason for everything that she did there. 

This film shows how artifacts in pentadic criticism are not always what they are intended to be.  The acts and purposes of a person often change when they enter a situation.  Things do not always go according to plan, and this film shows that this change of plans works to better the lives of the children and those who work to help them.