Review of Girl Model (2011) by Amanda H — 25 May 2014

For it being my first time experiencing the newly renovated Hot Docs Cinema on Bloor St West, I was a little surprised to see the option of a second level balcony. Very cool retro cinema structural element which I applaud them retaining; especially when a lot of other theaters are being wrecking-balled for condos(Cumberland???). Even though I haven't seen a documentary at the Hot Docs festival in a few years, it's enlightening to know we film buffs have preserved a physical space to communally enjoy films shot in and about real life conditions.

Not to say Girl Model was a prize winning devirginizer to the glorification of the documentary genre. Better ones such as Exit Through the Gift Shop, Inside Job or Food, Inc would have been much more revered.

When you have barely pubescent (and legal?) girls aged 13+ cattle-called into false beliefs of a fantasy modelling utopia, you're bound to ruffle a few feathered pageant boas. Especially when the first right of model passage is being scrutinized for facial and physical flaws, shivering in a two piece bathing suit, the subject matter is demoralizing to say the very least.

Unless you're a pervert or pedophile who enjoys viewing such exhibitions, the frontier behind Girl Model is depressing, bleak and unsettling. With scouting taking place in Siberia & offshoot locals of Russia, we meet former child model, now recruiter Ashley Arbaugh (beautiful in a just past her America's Next Top Model prime), who solicits white, angelic, porcelain-esque girls to be shipped to Japan catering to their virginal, untainted, innocent marketing demands. Along with transcribing Ashley's business perspective on the modelling industry (infused by her own eccentric socio and psychological model spotlighting) Girl Model captures 13 year old Nadya's life long dream to be discovered for her blond beauty. Nadya (who resembles a cross between Dakota Fanning and Amanda Seyfried) is sweet, charming, and selfless. She knows that financial relief can be garnered for her family if she is one of the chosen few. Being selected by Ashley {who is a non Russian speaking, American with a gorgeous, modern doll house in Connecticut with two plastic dolls representing her yearning for physical children}, Nadya literally gets dumped on Japan's doorstep to fend for herself. Her dreams of fame (along with many of the other girls) disintegrate through realisms of abandonment, trafficking, debt building & starvation. Where girls become obscure puppets disembodied by the machinations of Japan and the Agency's exploitive lucrative operations.

Co-directed by David Redmon and Ahsley Sabin, the stark Siberian and Russian settings are bleak and forlorn; the scenes in Japan impersonal and alien. Distractingly inter-cut with Ashley's "Blair Witch Project"-esque video-diaries, and gritty COPS like night scenes, the documentary seams torn between telling Ashley's story and telling Nadya's (aka trafficked girls) story. Neither to which is there a satisfactory resolution nor wrap up. The directors uselessly throw in "Who was that? Why is she there?" former American child model Rachel Blais for two commentary scenes. Even in the unfocused back-and-forth docu-telling, Girl Models does provoke an emotional unsettling; one which will disturbingly resonate with you from the first second to the very last.