Don't listen to the negative reviews

Best movie ever!

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I had often wondered why, in the documentary portrayal's of street kids, 'Streetwise' was the one to garner all of the attention. Granted, it too, was a heartbreaking look at some kids affected by some pretty tumultuous times in this country thanks to many idiot policymakers euphemistic ideas about trickle-down economies. Sad as it is to say, I think the appeal comes from 80s nostalgia, and particularly nostalgia for the 80s American teenager. 'Children Underground,' which follows five children living in a subway station in Romania is much more disturbing and stark portrayal than Streetwise. As the prologue explains, many children found themselves on the street because, after the fall of Communism in Romania, the economy and state facilities in particular were effected and became ill-equipped to deal with hardships. Although, some of the kids portrayed in this documentary left home as a result of family problems.Of the five children are Cristina Ionescu (16) is the oldest and I suppose the protectorate of the group of subway children. Although, she never seems to be too sincere in this role, beating the younger ones herself sometimes. Her background involves shifts between state custody in an orphanage and later an asylum because, as she said, she refused to let herself be beaten or taken advantage of and fought back.Mihai Tudose was probably the most interesting among the street children; a 12 year-old boy who ran away from home because, as he explains, his father beat him. He always seemed to be in search of something better than the street life, but it just didn't seem that many were able to help him out. For example, we see him attending the school for street children, but when the social workers went home to get the papers that would enable his attendance, his parents wouldn't give them up. He was, just as the synopsis for the film says, a particularly intelligent boy. He just seemed to want to give up life in the subway in exchange even for the company of a pseudo-family (the homeless mother and the baby living in the abandoned building).Macarena Rosu (14) was perhaps the saddest case because she basically spends the entire film huffing paint with other street kids. And, to the point that by the end, it seems that she has become either schizophrenic or manic depressant as a result, rationalizing her existence with the imaginary mother and father living outside of Bucharest and the twin sister by the same name attending private school, even though we know her to have arrived on the streets straight from an orphanage.Ana and Marian Turturica are the youngest of the group. They never really get the full story as to why Ana (10) kept running away from home or why she eventually got her brother, Marian (8) to come with her. I would suspect, based on the stepfather's conversation, that it was because she at least did not get along with him. Or, that they felt incapable of living with their mother while she and the stepfather were unemployed and barely surviving themselves.There doesn't seem to be much that could be done through the state to help these children. The hospital for street kids, for example, had no place to house the children. There were other facilities that were so limited on beds that the children first had to be deemed capable of rehabilitation, which basically meant that, since these children were hoooked on huffing paint, it wasn't likely that they would be admitted. And the older ones, it seemed, stood no chance of consideration at all.I think in part that this movie was more stark than Streetwise is because so many of the children weren't yet even teenagers when the movie was filmed. And few of them seem to be living in any sort of euphoric sense of freedom. The situation is bad and they appear to well aware that for many of them, they're trapped in it. (Although, that is not to make light of the situations faced by the kids in Streetwise). It is, as other said, a hard to film to take in. There are scenes in the film where you wish the filmmakers, if no one else, would intervene. Especially in the moments where the youngest are beat up, where Mihai inflicts mutilation upon himself, of the kids who spend all day with their face in bag full of Aurolac paint, of the underfunded facilitaties that couldn't provide enough assistance, and also of the families who seem just as hopeless as the children. It is indeed an incredible piece of film-making.

Well, I had just come back from work at about 2am in the morning. I turn on my TV and switch through the channels, and on SBS I find this amazing documentary about the Romanian 'underground children'.This documentary really gave an honest (raw) view of the street kids life, which I found to be both fascinating and disturbing.. What I found interesting was the fact that a lot of them (in my view) 'enjoyed' or customised to the street life and really didn't want to be helped. I personally could see their justification for this at the beginning of the documentary as they all had friends, a place to sleep and a type of community. Though near the end, when it showed them a year or so later it made me quite sad to think that a lot of them are really on their own and loosing their grip on reality due to sniffing paint everyday, especially 'Macarena'. I really dread to think where this girl is now, considering that she is probably around the age of 16 or 17.Anyhow, whether you care about the homeless or not this documentary really is interesting. Highly recommended.

Though it tells a sad story of a small group of runaway children living in squalor, the courage and survival instincts of some of these kids is inspiring. The filmmakers, to their credit, avoid preaching or commentary and there is (thankfully) no narration nor much incidental music to manipulate the viewer's emotional response, as so many lesser documentaries try to do. The DVD contains helpful follow-ups telling where the kids were at after the filming was done. Some of their stories are sad, others hopeful. The documentary doesn't create phony drama with "heroes" and "villains," it doesn't condemn or point fingers at parents or society but lets the audience make up its own mind, and hopefully some viewers will be inspired by this film to make a difference about troubled kids in their own communities.

Spoilers (for a documentary)I have just watched the DVD for Children Underground and found it to be very disturbing, as it should be. The situation of the homeless children isn't all that different from the homeless here in the states. The scope of the problem in Romania is larger, but the film only focuses on a small number of children. They are drug addicted, mischievous, and seemingly addicted to living on the street. A group of social workers in a shelter bring up the issue of how children become accustomed to living on the street are not able to adapt to shelter life. I can't recall another documentary touching on the idea of how difficult it is to help certain people, even when resources are available to do so. Medicine is expensive and clinics can not afford to waste it on addicts, shelters can not afford to provide for those deemed incapable of rehabilitation. Even if the children want help, and many don't, or don't appear to know how to accept it, they must be prepared even before being brought into a shelter. The damage done to these kids isn't easy to diagnose or repair. They may have suffered at home, been made despondent extreme poverty, and have psychiatric conditions. Once they are on the street they need to be "deprogrammed" before they can begin to change their ways. In my opinion, they will never be all right, they will always be 'shell shocked' by their experiences.We hear about one girl that is at times proud of how "street" she is and at other times hardworking and attending school. Unfortunately, she is routinely suspended from school due to her addiction to huffing paint. The drug of choice for these kids is Aurolac, or paint. I saw a documentary on Seattle's street kids and many of them were addicted to heroin. Heroin is a much more dangerous drug, and one wonders if the kids addicted to paint in the movie will eventually move on to harder drugs.Ana doesn't talk about her parents or her situation. She has run away from home many times, and she has taken her younger brother with her to live on the streets. When the filmmakers meet her parents we learn that they are unemployed and unable to support their kids. The stepfather says that he doesn't beat her, but talks down to her, and says that he almost left their mother because of the kids. The parents ask the children whether they want to stay or go to back to the city, and it is hard to tell what they really want her to do. I felt like they were pushing her away, getting her to make the decision so that they can't be held liable for abandonment charges. The stepfather even says "this isn't abandonment" in response to her decision. Perhaps the most disconcerting moment for me was watching the "Where are they now?" extras on the DVD and learning that Ana's mother gave birth to twins in 2002. I just thought, after all I have seen and learned, Why? Why would she bring two more children into the world when she literally can not provide even a basic existence for her current children?The movie has the stories of other street children. Many similarities are found in the stories. There are, in fact, tens of thousands of similar stories in Romania. We are left to wonder the eventual outcome. Will these children be ignored and brushed aside by the people walking the streets, and by their government. Will the generation of homeless be left to die out? Will they get pregnant and raise their children on the streets, creating a new generation of street kids? What are the current conditions in Romania? Is there a steady stream of new children coming to live on the streets?