good back-story, and good acting

As Good As It Gets

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

This was an okay low-budget documentary about brothels in Cambodia, specifically the Svay Pak village. It would've been much easier to swallow if it wasn't for the self-righteous Christians who run AGAPE/ARC and used this as a propaganda piece.Bad enough these girls have been preyed on by pedophiles, then to get taken in and converted to Christianity, one can't help but feel it's just exploitation under a different guise.For a better view, check out the movie Holly, which has no religious agenda behind it and is much more satisfying from a story-telling perspective.

As might be expected from a "documentary" that credits a writer, this movie tells more than it shows, promoting an shadowy agenda. It consists mostly of interviews with white activists interested in making a difference in the Orient...or are they operatives for a religious organization? Most objectionable are the blatant distortions. The narrator tells a sadistic tale about a girl who was brutally raped and imprisoned as a sex slave, but when they allow her on camera for a few moments she says she decided to become a prostitute because she was poor and needed money, though she is "upset with herself," presumably because the work wasn't as easy as she thought. Her stoicism is put in stark relief to the middle-class white activists who repeatedly break down in tears as they tell stories that they've heard. They express naive horror at bondage, and explain the strange lack of boys being abused by claiming they are all pimps. Later the activists plan an operation posing as pedophiles to take down a trafficking operation. But their hidden camera footage simply shows them entering a brothel like any other customer, without trying to buy a young kid or even a virgin. Afterwards a young white dude starts bawling at the thought of saving the girls he saw, though it turns out this brothel is operating legally, with no slaves or kids on the premises. In revealing moments they admit the most challenging part is that the girls don't want to leave, and that stories of trafficked kids sell better in the West.The rest of the movie describes the preventative programs staffed by natives they have set up to educate and provide for basic needs of young girls. These do seem to be legitimately helpful, since money has a magic capability of relieving people struggling because they are poor. But putting these classrooms of little girls in a movie about sex trafficking distastefully implies that they are victims of rape. Even when they are giving charity to little kids an organization so obsessed with preventing paid sex can only be shady.

This is a great documentary to help understand the world of human trafficking. If you get an opportunity, watch it. You will forever be changed by watching this powerful and well put together show. The summary is: After selling herself at fourteen to a brothel inside her home town of Svay Pak, Mien takes an undesired path all over Cambodia for the remainder of her teenage life. At twenty, her path crosses with a group of people fighting to make a difference, bringing her long and onerous journey back to face where it all began. The Pink Room is an intertwined story of the heart-rending, epic battle to end sex slavery, from rescue to prevention, and experiencing first hand, the need to change not just individuals, but the communities they come from. Most documentaries on trafficking only bring awareness to the problem. This film bring awareness to the solutions.