Review of Children Underground (2001) by Suzanne V — 23 Apr 2006

Following the overthrow of Romanian dictator Nicolei Ceaucescu in 1989, the world was horrified by reports on the many thousands of Romanian children who were living in squalid orphanages and "mental hospitals". Most of these "orphans" and "mental patients" were neither orphans nor mentally ill. They were, instead, victims of the Ceaucescu regime's ban on contraceptives and abortions in conjunction with a failing economy and inadequate of social services. The bans ended with the fall of the dictatorship but the economy and social services have worsened. The result is a growing number of abandoned and runaway children living on the streets of Romanian cities.

This powerful documentary focuses on five children, ranging in age from six to about fourteen, who are among the estimated 20,000 homeless street kids in the nation's capital city of Bucharest. These five have made their home in a subway shelter, which offers them shelter from the elements, relative warmth in wintertime, and a constant flow of people to beg from. The camera captures how these children live, the ways in which they care for each other, and their huffing of paint fumes from plastic bags as a means of temporary escape from the misery of their lives. One minute they seem like mini-adults, unloading trucks for the subway kiosk operators and dealing in drugs ("aurolac" -- their name for the paint they huff), then the next they are crying like the children they truly are. This is not an easy film to watch and it offers no simplistic solutions nor any happy ending. A follow-up report contained on the DVD offers a little hope that things might get better for two of the five but no certainty that even these two will have a brighter future. This isn't a film you are likely to enjoy but you will be moved by it -- hopefully moved to act, for which reason the DVD include the urls of a variety of groups trying to address the problem of over 100 million street kids worldwide.