Children Underground

An example of cinema vérité at its most powerful, filmmaker Edet Belzberg's 2001 Oscar nominee for Best Documentary offers up a sentimentality-free, gut-wrenching portrait of homeless children living on the streets and in the subway stations of Bucharest, Romania, taking viewers past the see-no-evil throng of adult pedestrians for an intimate portrait of a freeform “family” of five children. Romania's 20,000 homeless children are the legacy of former Romanian head of state, Nicolae Ceausescu, whose disastrous economic schemes led to a shortage of orphanages, shelters, and other social services for homeless children. In this bleak cement world, we meet 16-year-old Cristina, an orphan who scolds and sometimes beats the younger homeless children to keep them in line; Macarena, a 14-year-old orphan with a severe addiction to Aurolac paint fumes; 10-year-old Ana, who left her impoverished and broken home, returning only to abduct her 8-year-old brother, Marian; and Mihai, wise beyond his 12 years, who wants an education but whose fear of his alcoholic father prevents him from returning home to get the necessary papers. A devastating portrait of human suffering, limned with brilliantly understated compassion, Children Underground exposes the viewer to the horrors of abuse, the forlorn wail of hunger, and the drug-addled stare of these lost innocents. Still, there's a glimmer of hope in the follow-up one year later that indicates a couple of the children might yet survive this trial by fire--if only by the thinnest of margins. Highly recommended. Editor's Choice. [Note: DVD extras include "Where Are They Now?" updates and a resource guide.] Aud: H, C, P. (A. Cantú)