Movies

For this paper, I choose the following movies Born Into Brothels, Cry Freedom and Gandhi.  The common denominator of these movies is that they deal with human dignity and human rights.

The movie Born Into Brothels (2004) is a documentary movie made by Zana Briski and Russel Kauffman who spent time in India among the prostitutes, documenting them through photographs and their families as well as interviewing them to gain insight into the conditions they live in an what drove them into the trade.  In exchange for documenting their mothers, the filmmakers offered to conduct photography classes for their children and these sessions would be filmed along with life in the red light district of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta).  Briski and Kaufmann intended to highlight this glaring problem of poverty among the underprivileged of Kolkata which serves as the root cause for the hand-to-mouth existence of the women here which prevents them from getting better education and decent jobs.  Being deprived of these opportunities prompted them to get into the oldest profession as they practically have nowhere else to go (Kaufmann  Crowdus, 180).  Briski and Kaufmanns efforts bore fruit when they won Best Documentary in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and an Academy Award in 2005 for Best Documentary Feature.  Although one could say this movie is not earth-shaking to say the least in trying to address the issue of poverty in India, the makers of the film hoped to raise awareness and are also hoping this would be spread a hundredfold to the world.

The movie Gandhi (1982), directed by Richard Attenborough, depicts the life and times of Mohandas Gandhi (played by Ben Kingsley) who rose from being an English-educated lawyer in South Africa to eventually become the leading figure in Indias independence movement.  India during Gandhis early life was a British colony that not only exploited its natural resources but subjugated its people through discrimination and exploitation by their British colonial masters.  What was interesting to note in the movie was Gandhi first experienced this not in India, but in South Africa where he worked as a lawyer where whites tend to look down upon dark-skinned people and regard them as inferior without any consideration to their strengths, as in Gandhis case, his education and his intelligence in the scene where he was thrown out of the train for refusing to move to the Third Class compartment despite having a First Class ticket (Kingsley).  It was also in South Africa that he began to develop his trademark passive resistance movement (satyagraha) where he sought to fight for what was right without resorting to violence.  The film not only highlighted the discrimination and exploitation of Indians, it also highlighted Gandhis novel way of fighting the evils of colonialism through satyagraha.  Although India eventually achieved its independence, the creators of the film intended to highlight the effectiveness of Gandhis satyagraha.  The movie is a historical drama and it serves to remind people of how one man and his idea could make the difference and the proof came long after Gandhis death with the civil rights movement in the United States to the peaceful demonstrations in eastern Europe that helped hasten the fall of communist regimes there.

The movie Cry Freedom (1987), also directed by Attenborough, depicts life in South Africa during the enforcement of the policy of Apartheid which had been in force since 1947 by the minority white government who feared being dominated by the black majority.  The story centers of the friendship between a white English South African newspaper editor Donald Woods (played by Kevin Kline) and Steve Biko (played by Denzel Washington) who was one of the leading exponents of the anti-Apartheid movement besides Nelson Mandela.  The plot of the movie is based on the books, Biko and Asking for Trouble.  These were written by Woods following the death of Biko at the hands of the authorities and his subsequent flight to England to escape persecution in order for him to tell the entire tale.

Although the movie centers mainly on the friendship of the two men, the film provides the audience a look on what life was like in South Africa during the Apartheid years through the eyes of Woods, who at the beginning was very critical of Bikos views. Biko, like Mandela, was also the target of persecution by the authorities for his bold stand against Apartheid that he was banned where he was forbidden to mingle with other people, do anything in public or even leave his township. His experience underscored what other black South African had to go through under a system that intended to keep them inferior by a minority group fearful of being dominated by them, hence the need to use terror and repression. When Biko was arrested, he died while under police custody and it was suspected he was tortured to death, Woods attempted to seek the truth but was persecuted (Washington).  Fearing for his life and that of his family, Woods and his family escaped to England where he exposed the evils of Apartheid in his two books.  When this film was first released, South Africa was then practicing Apartheid and it helped arouse awareness to the issue.  It was so critical of the incumbent regime then that the film was banned throughout the period until the 1990s.

In conclusion, all these films are political, as Crowdus stated in his book (Crowdus, xi).  Born Into Brothels is more of a documentary where the creators used real people who are going through real miserable conditions as part of their goal in arousing awareness and making a statement of their stand against the social problems plaguing not only India but other places that are also going through similar circumstances.  The other two feature films are historical in nature and both also sent a political statement of the sufferings people face when their dignity is stripped from them and their rights violated.  These films were not meant to only entertain but to arouse awareness as well and to make people be vigilant.