MovieChat Forums > Children Underground (2003) Discussion > Anyone else found it disturbing when Mih...

Anyone else found it disturbing when Mihai was cutting himself?


That scene where Mihai was cutting himself in the park was truely disturbing.

My question is, who stopped Mihai? Was it a stranger passing by or was it one of the filmmakers? Because if it was one of the strangers passing by it makes me feel really sick to my stomach think that the cameramen stood there and did nothing just so they can get a good shot.

I know documentaries are not suppose to interfere with anyone but damn this kid was going to kill himself. I wish to God it was one of the filmmakers who stopped this kid. If it was a stranger, these filmmakers are really irresponsible.

"You can go home in a plastic bag tonight, John."
Vinnie "Big Chris" Jones

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I totally agree with everything you said. It was very disturbing and I believe that it was a passer by who stopped Mihai. He could've caught a vain or something. Also, I hate it when Ana is getting beat up and the crew did nothing to stop those girls from doing what they did to her. But I noticed that almost all of the kids had some type of bandage wrapped around their arm. What was that all about??




It's all about the corned beef sandwiches and pineapple juice

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I'm convinced it was a passer by as well. It's really just insane. He cut himself up like 5 times and wasn't stopping clearly making the cuts deeper and deeper. Then like you mentioned Ana getting literally a boot right to the face. The filmmakers did nothing. Unfortunately the filmmakers not stepping in just mars the whole film. Of course the film is not hey lets watch some kids beat each other up and get high, but damn it sure feels like that when filmmakers are that irresponsible.

About this bandages, it was mentioned in the film by the social worker who visited Ana's house that most kids cut themselves. So am guessing its that. Or even worse they tried a hand at doing heroin or any other needle drug and just "learned on the way."

"You can go home in a plastic bag tonight, John."
Vinnie "Big Chris" Jones

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When Mihai was in that school working on his worksheet did you see his arm??? Omg it was like all red and looked like a bad rash. I didn't know what in the world that was.

It's all about the corned beef sandwiches and pineapple juice

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I looked back on the dvd, and wtf. I just noticed his arm when he was at school. That looks 10 times worse than any cut. The kids of this world need our attention.

"You can go home in a plastic bag tonight, John."
Vinnie "Big Chris" Jones

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I've been reading interviews with the filmmaker, she said that the kids would get beaten up 3 or 4 times a day and what we actually see on the film is only a small percentage. She also said that by not interferring people can see the reality these kids live in. It would be hard for me not to give them food, tear the paint bags from their hands, make them take a bath and wash their clothes. This film is so heartbreaking.

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i noticed his arm also, yes its very disturbing, i do think it was the filmmaker who stepped in and made mihai stop, if you have the dvd there is a picture of herslef on the back, and it looked very similer to the woman to tried to stop him.


"I met Death today. We are playing chess. "

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i was thinking that the thing on his arm might be something like the iodine they used to give kids that turned their skin a sort of orange-like color.

Ain't we a pair, Mr. Raggedy Man?

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[deleted]

First of all I live in Bucharest and one of my best friends is a prison guard so I really know what I'm talking about. Here. among prisoners, when you feel that you are in trouble because another inmate is going to beat you up or he'll do to you something else more disturbing and your only way out is to get to the infirmary, the inmates cut themselves on their hands. Usualyy this happens also in foster houses. When kids are affraid that they will be beaten by older kids, they ran away fron the foster home or cut themselves so they'll make it to the infirmary. They sometimes do even more terryfing things like sewing their lips with barb wire ... All the children were cut by themselves on their hands because of this.

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I found more disturbing when Ana was kicked on the face........

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I found it even more disturbing when Ana's stepfather told the interviewer that he knew that Ana was still a virgin because he'd bathed her and just happended to notice...

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@JeramyEdison
I agree with you, everything that man said was horible.
To me that was really one of the low points, I felt really bad, in the scenes before we see Ana getting hit in the head and coming home afterwords to a mother that does not want her. I just don't understand how could she let those kids go back on the streets, they are 10 an 8 years old, I really don't know what to say...

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he surely should be in prison for that remark ...

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It was the film crew who was stopping mihai from scrathing himself. They should've grabbed him a little sooner.

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it wasn't the film crew ... it was that woman that went with him at Mihai's house , the woman that was talking to him on the Constanta beach.

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As one of the earlier posters indicated-it was not one of the film makers that helped him. Several strangers came to his aid and more importantly, the woman who took Mihai home to get his "Identity Papers" In that earlier scene when they were sitting on the beach and Mihai was refusing to go home she said she would tell his parents she was from "Save the Children". I recognized her face and she was wearing the same jacket (red or orange?) that she wore in the earlier scene. It made me wonder if the film-makers had people from Save the Children or some such group, that spoke Romanian and could provide assistance with translation as well as the myriad of problems these children have.

It is true that cutting is not uncommon. Children/teen-agers often cut when they are unable to cope with a variety of feelings-in this case it was most likely rejection. Ana was saying hurtful things to him and rejecting him and he was probably unable to cope with her hurtful words. Ana's reaction to Mihai's cutting was interesting. Her tantrum ceased and she sat rather detached, staring as people came to Mihai's aid.

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I see most of you haven't paid attention to the details. The woman who stopped Mihai was a social worker from "Save the Children" The same woman that goes with him at his family in Constanta. And you are just exaggerating by saying he was going to kill himself. Street children do these kinds of things all the time. Not only them but any teenager with problems.

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I agree..the person who said he was going to kill himself obviously doesn't know much about the world outside of their own. Cutting/scaring has been around for ages. To some it's an adrenaline rush..to some it's just another way of venting. Also, I read the filmmakers statements about why they did not interfere and it made sense. Also, if they would have gotten involved these kids would have started to rely on the filmmakers for everything.

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^ I think you need to cool it with the insults. The child was cutting his forearm, it was easily towards his wrist. Anything could of happened, including death.

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who are you pointing to? If it was me, I wasn't insulting anybody. Death could have happened lots of times in the film. They are huffing paint all the time. lol

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Both of the families they visited were very disrubted. I fekt really bad for all of them but i felt the worse for mihai. He is so smart and has so much potential.

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i just saw the film a few days ago and i haven't been able to stop thinking about it. it is SO painful. and the thought that they are not nearly the only ones, and that the other kids they were hanging out with had just as harsh stories if not even harsher, and that they too were just as tortured and emotionally scarred, and that there are literally MILLIONS of kids in the world who are suffering such pain today. just so totally heartbreaking. all the beatings, and mihai cutting himself...
and like when cristina was beating on that kid, and then she called another kid over and hit him too, and he started crying and cristina made him suck it up right away. made me think of how many times this kid's been on the verge of tears and has sucked them up into his soul, he just looked like he's done it before, and it's definitely gonna become too much from time to time and he'll just lash out. and that's how sweet innocent kids become violent and hateful.
and that's the story with every single one of these kids - i saw another documentary called children of leningradsky about street kids in russia, and sadly it's the same exact way there, except it seemed that there were less job opportunities for the kids and the ONLY way to survive was to beg, steal, or prostitute yourself - boys and girls. and one thing that that video showed that this one didn't is it had a few minutes showing the street kids beating up on some older street people - kicking them, mercilessly taking their clothes and scarring them - it showed one man's legs dripping with blood from the street kids' attack. and it's so sad, because you feel like getting upset at the kids but you just CAN'T. it's not their fault - it's really really not. it's the fault of the horrible childhoods they've had; the total lack of upbringing and all the psychological scars they have, that you can't even blame them for being violent - it's the only way other than sniffing glue and paint or slashing their arms that they can let out some of the pain that's bottled up inside - and so much of that comes from being forced to suck up what could be a painful yet very necessary cry.
the amount of pain in this film is unimaginable and frankly, i'm sure that not helping the kids out in every SINGLE little detail of their lives, even details that WE might see as small, was extremely painful for the filmmakers, considering that they were THERE - these tortured children suffering infront of their own eyes. it's not JUST the big things they should have helped them with, it's EVERYTHING. but they made a decision which i understand 100% especially since if they made it it means they NEEDED to, or else i assure you they would have helped right away. their decision was not to interfere at all, or else we would have NO idea the actual reality of their lives. and this is only a fraction of their pain. the rest is left up to us to imagine.

about mihai and the red on his arm - my friend is russian and her grandmother hurt her leg pretty bad in a fall, and one day i was at her house and i saw this green stuff on her leg. i asked her about it and she told me it was some russian medicine. i jokingly asked her if it came in different colors too, and she said she didn't think so, but i'm thinking that the stuff on mihai's and the other kids arms has something to do with that.

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The filmmmakers did not intervene in the beating scenes but for a kid to buy AUROLAC in Bucharest as shown in the movie is 100% impossible. Grown-ups buy it from Paint stores and sell it to homeless persons for a higher price. No one sells it to kids !!! I live in Bucharest !!!

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what kind of unbiased documentary filmmaking would it have been if every time a fight broke out, or every time a kid decided to huff paint, or every time a kid cut themselves, or got beat up, that the film crew jumped in to break it up?

i understand how you feel remorseful for the children, it's horrible conditions that they are in.. but it isn't the documentary film crew's responsibility to repair their lives, break up fights, etcetera...

http://myspace.com/adipocere

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Deathwax, a child's life is much more important than your soon to be available entertaining documentary on dvd.

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Documentaries are not designed to entertain, they're designed to inform. You don't hear anyone complaining about the filmmakers for nature documentaries not stopping an animal from killing another, do you? It would not be an informative, realistic depiction of the situation if filmmakers had intervened, nor would it be raising alarms for children like this. Call it a mixed blessing.

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jeveuxlesoleil, where do you draw the line? Suppose one of those kids was being raped, a very common occurrence among street children, would you as a filmmaker step in to stop it? I would sure hope so.....

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precisely.
life's not fair.

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Real life tends to be disturbing sometimes , sorry pal.

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These really bring up ethical issues is documentary filmmaking. I wouldn't call it irresponsible, the essence of this style documentary is to capture real life and be as unobtrusive as possible.

These kids go through these hard ships daily, whether the crew was there or not. By interfering with these parts of the film, they would have lost some of the most powerful scenes in it.

Thanks for presenting this issue though, I needed an idea for a response paper for my film class, haha.

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