BWW Reviews: SOLD Is Bold and Daring Filmmaking of the Highest Order

(The 2nd Annual Illuminate Film Festival, running from May 27th through May 31st in Sedona, Arizona, is featuring 22 inspirational films including the world and U.S. premieres of several documentaries and full-length movies. The following is a review of a specially selected film from the Festival ~ the opening night Arizona premiere of SOLD, based on Patricia McCormick's provocative novel about the worldwide tragedy of human trafficking.)

A picture is worth a thousand words. When that picture compellingly illuminates a contemporary issue and jumpstarts one's conscience and consciousness, then its value multiplies many-fold for the role that it plays, beyond entertainment, in heightening public awareness and, hopefully, advancing social change and reform.

Such is the case with SOLD, a provocative and disturbing account of the brutality of human trafficking, specifically that of young girls sold into prostitution and slavery. There is no doubt about it, this film is mandatory viewing for all people. It merits wide distribution. It is an essential addition to the growing library of documentation regarding the abuses of the innocents of our world. It is laudable for the intelligence it brings to understanding the technology of terror and the systematic dynamics of enslavement.

SOLD, the award-winning film based on Patricia McCormick's novel about the worldwide tragedy of human trafficking and directed by Jeffrey D. Brown, is a necessarily unsparing and stunning account of a child's ordeal in the nefarious world of brothels and gangsters.

Set against the contrasting landscapes first of a bucolic mountain village in Nepal and then the mean streets of Kolkata, India, all exquisitely captured by Seamus Tierney's and Jehangir Chowdhury's keen photographic eyes, the film tracks the grueling odyssey of a 13-year-old girl from the haven of her innocence through a circle of seemingly inescapable hellishness to salvation. John McDowell's score is a brilliant and sometimes haunting fusion of Indian and Western melodies that adds immeasurably to the power of this master work.

Niyar Saikia is Lakshmi, whose days are filled with kite flying and family chores and whose life is abruptly upended by the siren call of false promises of money and opportunity. For her first role in a feature film, this young actress is dynamite. With subtle changes of expression, she convincingly expresses a gamut of emotions ~hope, anguish, resistance, tenacity, and faith ~ and will steal your heart away.

Hers is a hard knock life, to be sure, but without overly romanticizing it, the hills of her childhood seem alive with the sounds of music and community and harvesting and a core wisdom about life best voiced by Lakshmi's mother, Amma, warmly expressed by Seema Biswas. It is Lakshmi's father, unemployed and further impoverished by the monsoon's havoc, who responds to the siren, elegantly but chillingly portrayed by Tillotama Shome. Ms. Shome's "Auntie Bimla" promises big money and a city life where girls can wear fancy jewelry and eat sweetcakes to their heart's content. Lakshmi is sold by her father for what ends up being a bill of bads. Solaced with the notion that she will earn enough money to buy a tin roof for her family, Lakshmi sets off on a trek across the border to India that is no yellow brick road. It is rather a hijack to a place ironically called Happiness House. The deceits of this place lie not only in its name but in the succession of broken promises and manipulations that serve to suppress a child's will.

Mr. Brown does not spare us the abominations that Lakshmi endures ~ the beatings, the multiple rapes, the fierce attempts by Mumtaz, the brothel's madam (Sushmita Mukerjee) to crush her spirit ~ and in doing so he requires us to awaken to the imperative for action. Action equal to the scale of Lakshmi's as, in a bold and courageous act of defiance, she risks everything to do the right thing.

In this film, the call to action is further embodied in Sophia (Gillian Anderson), a socially conscious photographer who, by virtue of a falling feather and a cry for help, is alerted to Lakshmi's imprisonment. With the assistance of the staff (David Arquette, Parambrata Chatterjee, Seirah Royin, et al.) of the aptly named Hope House, a shelter and training center for disadvantaged girls, she sets the wheels in motion for the film's heart-pounding denouement.

Mr. Brown, the movie's producers, and Tess Joseph, the casting director, have assembled one powerhouse of a cast to convey one powerhouse of a story, stunningly and rivetingly driving home the scourge of human trafficking. As one who has worked directly with nonprofits dealing with victims of such violence against children, I have waited for a film like this that, with quality, honesty and integrity, lays bare the ugliness of this sin against humanity.

It is worth noting that Ms. Anderson's commitment to the film extends to her active advocacy on behalf of efforts to combat human trafficking. In fact, she will be in Sedona for the premiere, supporting a fund-raiser for the Integrative Restoration Institute, an organization studying the benefits of Yoga Nidra for healing trauma in survivors of sex trafficking. Kudos as well to Emma Thompson and Jane Charles for the courage and spirit to produce this masterpiece of documentation.

SOLD premieres in the Main Theater of the Sedona Performing Arts Center at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 28th.

Photo credit to SOLD.

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