via CAAI News Media
Sun, 01/31/2010
In 2002, New York lawyer Guy Jacobsen was backpacking around Cambodia. Shocked by an encounter with a child prostitute, Jacobsen was inspired to co-found the Redlight Children's Campaign,a non-profit organization that aims to combat worldwide child sexual exploitation and human trafficking, by decreasing the demand side of the international sex trade through legislation and enforcement while raising awareness utilizing mass media and grassroots outreach.
Through its partnership with Priority Films, the Redlight Children's Campaign launched the K11 Project, a trilogy of films that attempts to expose real life experiences of the underage sex trade, all filmed on location in Cambodia. Holly Kosmin attended the British film premiere of Holly, one of the three films, last month, at Prince Charles Cinema in London.
It's a strange twist of fate that I share my name with Holly, a film characterized by such coincidences. However, viewers don't need to share a name with the eponymous heroine in order to empathize with her.
Nor would they need to be familiar with the Cambodian landscape, murky Mekong and all, but again my own experience and interest in the country made me connect especially with the film.
I came away with a real sense that this sex trafficking could have been happening on the fringes of the places I stayed. I ate in restaurants almost identical to the ones in the film, perhaps I also wandered down streets containing 5-year-olds offering oral sex, as writer Guy Jacobson did.
This harrowing point was emphasized by the speakers at the panel following the screening. When trafficking is seen as an immediate (rather than distant) problem, it hits home harder, and inspires people to act.
The film centers on the relationship between Patrick (Ron Livingston, Sex and the City) and the 12-year-old Holly (Thuy Nguyen). Virginie Ledoyen (The Beach) and Udo Kier (Dancer in the Dark), respectively as a kind Frenchwoman and a villainous attorney frequenting the brothel, turn in excellent performances too.
Patrick, an American card shark/illegal artifacts dealer, ends up staying in a room at the brothel when his motorbike breaks down. He and Holly develop a sibling-like relationship. He helps her pick fruit and teaches her to ride a motorbike, while she gives as good as she gets, teasing him delightfully.
These interactions emphasize her youth and innocence, contrasting with the sex trade around them and Holly's own clumsy overtures toward Patrick. Her prime motivation is to get away to her Vietnamese village, and to ensure that her younger sister doesn't share her fate of being sold by their family into prostitution.
Holly thankfully avoids falling into the trap of portraying the issue simply as male violence against women.
We're confronted with madams rather than male pimps. Indeed, the first "Mama" seems disgusted by any man not as invested in having Holly's virginity taken as she is. The character is over the top, reminiscent of Mrs. Bennett in Pride and Prejudice (if she were obsessed with getting her girls sexed up rather than married off), but it adds a much needed comedic tinge to the dark subject. We also see the cruelty of an older girl, Barbara, towards Holly, possibly prompted by jealousy over Patrick's attentions.
There is tension throughout, especially as to whether Patrick will ever be able to rescue Holly, and there's a standout landmine scene that achieves an amazing effect, especially through its use of noise.
This tension is further amplified by the horrific nature of Holly's experiences, such as when an ostensibly kindly policeman delivers her straight to another brothel for a reward and she is soon used as entertainment for the town's important Vietnamese guest. At first the guest's pleasant demeanor and the fact they share a language offers a glimmer of hope that only makes the ensuing actions more appalling.
When Patrick and Holly are reunited she doesn't seem to recognize him, and although he can wash away her makeup, he can hardly remove the indelible impact of her ordeal.
The film avoids a clich* Hollywood happy ending. Instead, it is bleak, but not entirely unhopeful, and reflects the complicated relationship between the two main characters as well as difficulties in offering a solution to the problems raised by human trafficking.
Simply by existing and exposing the issue, the film serves its anti-trafficking message. Its compelling demonstration of how there are no simple answers is powerful.
Jacobson's Redlight Children's Campaign emphasizes that you can't just fling money at the problem but must confront it head on and work on actually dismantling the structures that put it in place to begin with.
See http://www.redlightchildren.org/ for more information.
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