Kaffeine Buzz
reviews independent and foreign films,
in addition to reporting the latest buzz behind
Colorado's film festivals.
holly (guy mosche)
Guy Jacobson is a New York lawyer
and investment banker, who in 2002, visited Phnom
Pehjnh in Cambodia. While there, he was approached
by young girls, ages ranging from 5 to 7 years
old, who offered their bodies for sale. In a sense,
he was Patrick, the lead character in this new
feature film “Holly,” who vows to
save one girl from this horrific way of life.
This film is the first in a series of three film
planned by Jacobson’s organization, all
of which take a hard and heartbreaking look at
the incomprehensible world of child trafficking
and child prostitution.
Most layers and investment bankers have little
background in filmmaking, but the plight of these
children must have gotten underneath his skin,
and he couldn’t let go. But it is amazing
what can be accomplished when one has their mind
set. Teaming with director Guy Mosche,
the two wrote the screenplay, which feels so natural,
you almost feel as if it is a documentary where
the subjects were living their lives unknowingly
under the scope of a camera a lens.
They also managed to pull in talent the likes
of Ron Livingston, who was perfect
for the part of Patrick, a somewhat tortured soul,
living life day to day as a card shark with no
real direction or purpose. He gets a bit more
on track, so to speak, when he’s hired by
his friend Freddie (the last performance for actor,
Chris Penn), who deals in stolen
artifacts.
Patrick is not new to the poverty of Cambodia,
having lived there for some time. But he’s
survived by keeping to himself with his head down
and in a continuous glass of beer. One day, fate
intervenes and he sees the eyes of a 12-year old
girl Holly, and knowing her fate, is determined
to save her in whatever way he can.
Holly is still a virgin, a prized commodity,
and has yet to succumb to this life of prostitution.
She has tenacity, and Patrick calls her “stubborn”
for doing what she wants. In fact, she is even
more determined that he is to free herself by
running away from the brothel that bought her
from her parents. We learn that this practice
is one of survival for families in Cambodia, but
is not foreign to other parts of the world as
well.
One might ask how parents can do that to their
children. When Patrick goes in search of Holly,
he asks for guidance from a local man, who encourages
him to just drop it. “These people already
have a reservation for hell. They care about nothing.
Your life? Maybe five dollars?” In reality,
they are the poorest of the poor.
Although Holly got away, she was soon in the
hands of another brothel, and this time she wasn’t
able to escape. After she is taken to bed for
the first time, the stubborn little girl is gone,
and she falls in line with the other girls of
the house.
Fate and circumstance play their part again,
and Patrick finds her once more. But this time,
she treats him like any other prospect. It takes
a trip to a hotel and him standing her under a
cold shower before she becomes Holly again, collapsing
and crying into his arms. In a sense, their roles
are changed at this point. Holly’s fight
for her life pulled Patrick out of his haze, and
now he was doing the same for her.
There is no happy ending here. That would be
doing a disservice to the film, to those who watch
it, and to the tens of thousands of children living
in these conditions today. The truth is not often
pretty, tied up with a nice bow of ever after.
In order to right a wrong, knowledge is required,
along with hope and determination.
The film is an amazing achievement in all ways:
though the acting, including Thuy Nguyen
who played the part of Holly (her first lead role),
the cinematography, and the script, which wasn't
dense with dialogue, but told the story clearly
and succinctly.
Taking incredible risks, the film was shot right
in the K11 red light district where Jacobson was
hit with the epiphany that global awareness through
film would be his way to drive action against
child sexploitation. The foundation, RedLight
Children Campaign, was born out of this grassroots
initiative, as was the “K-11 Project,”
which is the series of film by which Holly is
a part.
The films to follow includes two documentaries:
The
Virgin Harvest that uses an undercover HD
camera to “reveal the warped reality in
which children are sold and smuggled across borders
in order to entertain pedophiles from around the
world; and The K11 Journey, which follows a group
of international filmmakers over the course of
three years as they struggle to use film to capture
and expose the terrifying reality of the child
sex trade in South East Asia.
