Recently, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an article about the growing phenomenon of sex slavery in Southeast Asia. It was a sensitive, informative look at a difficult subject. As a journalist, Kristof appeared to be genuinely interested in the girls' plight and helped further open Western eyes to the subject of the child sex trade. While the topic of "Highway Courtesans" is not quite the same scenario as the one presented in Kristof's piece, the sensitive treatment of the notion of child prostitution makes it a nice companion piece to the Times article.
Mystelle Brabbee's "Highway Courtesans" has its North American premiere next week at SXSW. Brabbee shot the film over the period of a decade, and it follows the story of Guddi Chauhan, her sister Shana and their neighbor Sangita.
They are three young women from the Bachara community in Central India. The Bachara lifestyle is an ancient remnant of the Indian practice of using young village women as palace courtesans. In the modern era, the Bacharas continue a form of the tradition, with a family's oldest daughter (and in many cases their younger daughters as well) entering the family tradition of prostitution, pleasuring the truckers that drive past on the highway outside their village.
In this film, we mainly follow the transformation of Guddi Chauhan from young prostitute to independent woman. Through her, we get a glimpse of the Bachara community. It is a community where women have little hope of escaping and where they work almost solely for feeding their families. The girls here are not fully educated on the threat of AIDS and regularly have children with the truckers they sleep with. Their fathers and brothers beat and taunt them if they try to defy the family and not stay in "the business."
Brabbee's view is respectful. Despite the girls' nearly hopeless situation, she portrays them as hopeful, strong and surprisingly optimistic. There is a particularly moving scene in the film in which Sangita, Shana, Guddi and the other women of the community dance to lively Bollywood music.
Mystelle Brabbee makes an excellent choice by deciding to focus primarily on Guddi. From the moment she was forced into prostitution by her father, Guddi resented the tradition. As a subject, she is dynamic and interesting, eventually leaving the "business" and becoming a teacher through the group Action Aid.
My only complaint with this film is that it was not long enough. Brabbee does such a fantastic job making these women seem real and vulnerable that when the end comes, we are wondering what becomes of these women. Do Shana or Sangita ever get married to their children's fathers? Does Guddi ever rid herself of her abusive boyfriend, Sagar? Although these questions are never answered, it is a credit to Mystelle Brabbee as a filmmaker that she is able to evoke intense emotion and investment from her viewers.
"Highway Courtesans" is playing at the Austin Convention Center on Saturday March 13 at 2 p.m. The film is also showing at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown on Thursday, March 17 at 4:15 p.m.
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