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Children Underground
Director: Edet Belzberg
Actors: Cristina Ionescu (II), Mihai Alexandre Tudose, Violeta 'Macarena' Rosu, Ana Turturica, and Marian Turturica
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Retail Price (not our price): $24.95
Release Date: 2003-02-25
Theatrical Release Date: 2001
Studio: New Video Group
Run Time: 104 minutes
Format: Array
Format: Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Discs: 1


Editorial Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):

1) Amazon.com
This astonishingly intimate documentary follows five homeless children in Romania, where the collapse of communism has led to a life on the street for 20,000 children. From a 16-year-old girl who runs her gang with a mixture of brutality and compassion, to a small, intelligent, and remarkably articulate 12-year-old boy, these children seem at first feral and frightening--yet over the course of the movie their loneliness, desperation, and glimpses of hope will transform how you perceive them. Make no mistake: this is difficult watching. As Children Underground explores the meager state resources to support these children and follows some of the children back to their difficult families, the scope of the problem becomes larger and more irresolvable. But this documentary offers an unblinking and deeply compassionate insight into the extremes of human existence; you will not forget it easily. --Bret Fetzer

2) Description
Easily one of the most astonishing and engaging cinematic works of the past decade, CHILDREN UNDERGROUND is a profoundly intimate and heart-wrenching drama -- an Academy Award Nominee for Best Documentary Feature in 2001, and winner at nearly every major

Customer Reviews (supplied by Amazon.com):
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5

1) Dark documentary, not for everyone's consumption   [Rating: 4 out of 5]
This documentary shows the affect of the end of Communism in Romania, and policies of Chausescu to have Romanians have more children, many of which ended on the streets or orphanages.Some of the footage is quite shocking, and indeed sad. But it depicts reality in many parts of the world - which is a nice eye-opener once a while to learn how fortunate some of us are to have a reasonably good life, which we tend to take for granted.

2) A Top Ten Film   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
Everyone has her/his own personal list of Top Ten films of all time. Before yours gets written in stone, watch this film first. You will revise your list to include this film.

3) tragic documentary on childhood destition and homelessness   [Rating: 4 out of 5]
Oscar-nominated documentary that explores the tragic policy decision by Romanian dictator Nicolei Ceaucescu to outlaw contraceptives and encourage his impoverished populace to have more children. Thousands of children were born to broken or dysfunctional families in a nation mired in political and economic instability, resulting in a large and rapidly growing population of homeless children (more than 20,000 estimated) in the city of Bucharest. (As an aside, there are some organizations that have short-term volunteer programs in Romania where you can work with some of these kids. One of these type programs is offered through Global Volunteers.) This film is important partly because you can see the very quick and long-term result of policy decision.

4) Show It To A Teen, Show It To Yourself. Among The Best Of Films.   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
If you are you are reading this review, chances are it is from the privileged side of the digital divide. You're probably using a laptop at a café. Maybe you're using your personal computer at work or at home. Not too far from you, there's a kid who laments their sheltered life. There's a James Dean or a Holden Caulfield who is confronting the numbing insanity of a prosperous American childhood. This kid is growing up a lot like I did, with a full belly and not much to do. They have out-of-touch adult authorities who enforce a dull reality. Just for a day, they wish they could go experience life on the street. They wish they could explore booze and cigarettes and all the other things they aren't allowed to do. They see kids at school who are less supervised. Those kids have so much more fun in life. This kid is depressed. Home does not meet their expectations, even if it fulfills their material needs. She feels trapped by not chasing her expectations of a rich and interesting life in clubs, drugs, and intimacy. Maybe he wants to find out what it's like to be addicted. Maybe she actually believe that parties exist like the ones they stage on sitcoms. Maybe he just stares at cool kids out his parents' minivan window and believes they have a better life.You need to find this kid and force them to watch Edet Belzberg's Children Underground. Why is it important for kids who grew up like I did to watch a documentary about homeless children in Romania? I'm not sure. The film has a way of sobering any fantasies about street life and addiction. I can't describe what it's like to see these children puff away at plastic bags filled with paint thinner as middle-class adults nonchalantly pass them. Kids of all ages puff away at cigarettes and cut themselves, but it's not rebellious. It's not "cool" or "Goth" or "Emo" or a cultural accessory to being "deep" or "thoughtful." It isn't "stupid" or able to fit within moralistic or social-Darwinist jargon. It is naked poverty and naked mental illness. All of the judgment and persona that American culture invests in poverty and illness seems to melt in the testimony of Romanian children. Perhaps this documentary is so moving because the "face" of poverty in American popular culture is adult and non-white. This is an illusion but it frames the way in which we think of social ills. Young, white preteens aren't supposed to live lives of drugs, violence, and homelessness. At least, we aren't supposed to see these lives. I'm pretty sure that there are kids in Chicago, New York, and Seattle whose lives aren't unlike those of these children in Bucharest. Maybe you and I step over them in the Subway without noticing. Maybe we see those eyes in the face of a young stranger and resolve not to do anything about it. Of course, not all good intention has good consequence. The film is also a critique of charities and social services that can be woefully inept at meeting the childrens' needs. Good individuals are undermined by flawed bureaucracy. Children Underground does not raise complex problems and placate the viewer with simple answers. One wishes the hardware store would stop selling the kids paint to snuff until they drool and spasm. One wishes the state would stop trying to place kids back in homes that they identify as abusive. One wishes that birth control was affirmed as a human right. Belzberg gives a glimpse of the human condition that undermines the way in which American culture relates to the body through commodity and desire. Like the best cinema, the subtext for the audience makes the main text profound.

5) why we need birth control...   [Rating: 5 out of 5]
i think this movie, although depressing, was a good example of the survival instinct manifested in children. Maybe in some sort of perverted way i thought that these children would become expert in the ways of survival, and that this experience could be a positive in their lives as they got older. These kids were being knoked around early in life and this, hopefully, would only make them stronger granting them a true picture of reality and the dog eat dog lifestyle of capitalism. These kids are a model for the capitalist system that encourages a rugged darwinian individualism. A part of me wishes that I would have spent a few years on the street like these kids (sans the Aurolac if possible). If anything we should admire these children for their incredible innocent strength...this is urban primitivism and liberty at its best especially when contrasted with those fat and ugly pampered Bucharetians chillin' at Sydney's cafe...