MovieChat Forums > Unfinished Sky (2008) Discussion > Not a 'bordello'?

Not a 'bordello'?

posted 10 years ago by KayDrama
8 replies | jump to latest

The imdb summary of this movie (and several posters) keep saying she escaped from a bordello. However, my impression was that it was more of a hotel and that she was kept in a back room with bars. Since we see no other rooms similarly set up this way and no other women - and because the town baddies said they collected her as payment of a debt -my impression is she fell into their hands and they took advantage. She seemed to not be used to multiple rough sex partners hence her fighting so hard to escape and her absolute truth terror. (I'm not saying that anyone, even a prostitute deserves to be treated this way but for some, this treatment would be their everyday plight).

I wish the film had explained how she fell into the hands of her captors who decided because she had no rights that it was okay to hold her against her will and violate her. But they did not seem like professional kidnappers, pimps, etc. More like some "good ol' boys" willing to indulge their kinks and violence on a poor unwilling and helpless victim.

I have never been to Australia so if someone knows for sure that it was a bordello, please let me know.

[–] Tyler-A-Arse 10 years ago

The whole ordeal regarding her and the "bordello" was not very clear to me, either. I didn't know whether she had been originally kidnapped and traded. Or whether she was a prostitute who was traded, got sick of the abuse, and decided to escape.

John was worried about Tahmeena going to jail. I didn't quite get what that was about. Was it because she had a link to the Taliban? Prostitution?

Another thing I didn't get was John involvement with Bob. When John was in town, he stopped by Bob's "place" to look at the rooms. Did he know what they were doing? And by the way, what exactly were they doing.

[–] KayDrama 10 years ago

I don't think she was ever a willing prostitute. As best she could, she explained thru her drawing that her husband had multiple wives or they were divorced. It seemed he had children by two women. One of his daughters by the other woman died and Shayla (her daughter) traveled to (I've forgotten where) to take her place. Which sounds weird so perhaps instead of that scenario Shayla traveled as a child's companion to replace a servant that had died.

John was worried about her arrest by the locals and by any legit police because of her illegal status - I think.

I hope some Australians will log on and answer as to whether that is correct. I think she was in some time off immigration detention center (jail) at the end.

[–] elibev 10 years ago

I'm not Australian, but from what Tahmeenah told John, her husband was killed by the Taliban, and her neighbor lost his daughter in an explosion. Her neighbor had been about to take his own family to Australia, and Tahmeena asked him to take her daughter Shahlah in his deceased daughter's place, presumably because she feared for her safety or wanted her daughter to have a better life. Filling in holes myself after that (since it was never made clear how Tahmeenah came to Australia), I'm thinking she wanted to join her daughter and relied on someone untrustworthy to get her to Australia, and that THAT person was a human trafficker. (This sort of thing happens with some regularity, unfortunately - some scumbag promises to smuggle someone into another country, and charges them a ridiculous amount of money for passage, only to then sell the person into slavery.) Once Tahmeenah got to Australia, she was an illegal immigrant (which was why she would have been put in jail) in the hands of a human trafficker, who gave her to the other two guys to settle his debt.

[–] elibev 10 years ago

Oh, and I think it's made clear the other guys had forced her into prostitution, since at one point, the guy told John, "Do you know how much men will pay for an hour with a woman like her?" or something like that. And, also clear, the cop had raped and beaten her.

[–] KayDrama 10 years ago

Right. We're not saying the men were not prostituting her. The issue is the description of the movie on imdb says she was at a bordello. But there were no other women there that we saw. The evil men in the movie seemed to have only become pimps once they possessed her, not like they already had a "stable"of women already. I'm just pointing out how wrong and misleading the imdb descriptions of some movies are.

[–] KayDrama 10 years ago

Correction: I called it a "bordello", the description actually says "brothel". But I still have the same argument about the description.

[–] elibev 10 years ago

Hi. Yes, I got that. I was mostly commenting on the story Tahmeenah told John about her daughter as I understood it. It wasn't that the man had two wives, of which she was one, or that she was divorced from him. She says at one point that she's not Muslim, but Communist, so she wouldn't have been a second wife, and she makes clear her husband was killed by the Taliban. I agree she wasn't willing, and I agree that the guys didn't run a brothel - that was definitely misleading on IMDb's part. They were pimps, though, prostituting her against her will. I wish we'd found out for sure what happened to the one who wasn't shot and the cop. Though I have a vivid imagination and can write that part of the story myself. :)

[–] coleman6 10 years ago

I like your summary and conclusion. It's plausible and consistent with all the facts given--and unfortunately what happens to many imperiled women in 3rd World Countries.

To eliminate the shared confusion on Tahmeenah's circumstance, it would have been very useful to add a 1-minute scene at the end of the movie. An immigration official could have approached John when he, Tahmeenah, and her daughter are together for the first time in that detention center. The official could relate elibev's story to John, thereby tidying up some of the disturbing loose ends to this story.

I'll add that I never had the impression that Tahmeenah was the only woman lodged upstairs. There were multiple rooms that were being lived in. It's inconceivable that the other rooms were used by legitimate renters. The women were probably boarded elsewhere more discreet during the day and shipped en mass to the hotel for the evening hours.