Stolen Lives

According to writer/director Shona Miko, in the United States and Canada an estimated 7 billion dollars are generated annually by the commercial sexual exploitation of children under the age of 18, of whom over 300,000 work in the sex trade. While these figures are both shocking and saddening (and rather mystifyingly attributed to something called "International Relief Organization"), Stolen Lives spends the majority of its 47 minutes proffering little more than a compilation of sound bites from (former) underage female and male prostitutes, a detective, and social service workers, all bracketed by cheesy re-enactment footage set to vaguely ominous music. Filmed in Vancouver, B.C., this exposé clearly wants to serve as a wake-up call to the real tragedy of child prostitutes on the mean streets, but the litany of sad stories is all too familiar (in fact, there's nothing here that wasn't said more powerfully in the 1984 documentary Streetwise [VL-6/86]) and the language itself shopworn (more than one interviewee refers to the loss of "the little girl inside of me.") In the Jerry Springer/Rikki Lake/South Park era, where sex change operations are a topic of casual conversation, you simply can't present a subject like child prostitution in a semi-sensational manner (e.g., slo-mo night streetwalking footage set to Universal-Studios-monster-movie-type organ music) and expect to engage intelligent viewers. Very optional. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)