Girl Model (2011)

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Ashley Arbaugh is a model scout recruiting new blood in Siberia for the Japan market. She finds 13 year old Nadya Vall blonde country girl. Tigran Khachatrian is the owner of Noah Models and represents Nadya. Her mother is overjoyed that Nadya is the rising star. The family needs her to make money and she needs to earn to stay in Japan. It's culture shock, language barrier, and homesickness at first. She is paired with Madlen who is more cynical. The cattle call is eye-opening for its bluntness. It becomes obvious that the girls are not much more than product with a short expiration date. Ex-model Ashley holds some honest insights. However as grim and sad it all seems, this doc feels like it's holding back it punches. It digs into the first level but does not dig any deeper. This shows plenty of ugly underbelly but it only leaves me expecting more.

I found this documentary on Netflix streaming. It obviously was filmed almost 5 years ago but it is hard to find out what happened subsequent.It was conceived by Ashley Arbaugh, herself a former model from a young age, I believe 18. She says she has been in and around the business for 15 years, so she was in her early 30s when this film was made. She has gone from modeling to being a scout, seemingly specializing in girls from remote regions of Russia. Arbaugh hates the business but she has to make a living and she knows this business.The deception starts when she is making presentations to young girls, typically 11 to 15, and their parents. These are honest, hard- working but poor families, they want opportunities for their children and also could use the money for issues at home, like renovating the home to make a couple more bedrooms. Arbaugh plainly tells them they will get the equivalent of $8000 US plus at least 3 jobs that will pay them and, "unlike other agencies the girls will not get in debt to the agency."As the story unfolds we see that is clearly all a big lie. The girls, sent to Japan, go on shoots but are told they didn't get the job, yet some time later the girls find their photos in fashion magazines. Their contract specifies if they grow only 1 cm (less than 1/2 inch) in any of their three measurements, bust, waist, or hips, they will be sent home. One girl actually uses this as a way to get home early after she becomes disillusioned. Both girls we see go home (a different times) with debts to the agency of about $2000 US.The documentary features 13-yr Russian girl Nadya Vall, chosen simply because she was being evaluated when the filming started. She is a sweet kid, tall and skinny, from a nice family but thrown into something she had zero preparation for. She copes best she can but gets very lonesome for home. It is hard to imagine how she was able to deal with what was thrown at her, and I found myself wondering what her actual expectations had been as she was getting into this.This is a very worthwhile film simply for showing the seedy underbelly of the unregulated international child model business. Although not covered it is strongly implied that it is common for many of them to resort also to prostitution simply to make enough money to survive. All kids have dreams of some sort, no matter where they are born, it is sad to see how adults manipulate them for their own gain.

This is one disturbing documentary. I feel as shocked and repulsed as I would had I just watched a documentary on child pornography, which frankly, isn't too far removed from what I have just seen. I don't write many reviews but sadness and anger have prompted me to start typing.Unlike other reviewers who feel the directors skimmed the surface and left too much out, I disagree: by remaining quiet and distant (although thankfully they apparently did step in when the child models were in obvious need of help, which was not being provided by anyone else) they perfectly capture the solitary confusion, neglect, and loneliness that the girls face. The lack of action, human interaction (other than with unfriendly agency/magazine people), and the tedium of the documentary all perfectly mirror the experience the girls themselves go through. If we (adult viewers) aren't completely clear as to who certain people are, or what exactly is going on, then we can safely assume that a 13 year old girl from Siberia, who speaks neither English nor Japanese, and has no parents to help, would not know either - and that's the point. These young, hopeful, innocent girls are plucked from their surroundings and dropped into the ruthless, heartless, abusive world of modeling with no support system in place, where (shockingly, to me) women as much as men treat them as insentient "things", products that they can push, prod and pick apart. To make it all the more morally repugnant, having endured being repeatedly reviewed/rejected/reviewed/rejected/reviewed/rejected, they are sent home, not with thousands of dollars in their bank accounts, but IN DEBT to the agencies that "represent" (pimp) them.So who's to blame for all of this - does the fault lie with the parents for sending their children off, unescorted, into the blue? I don't think so- they have been promised a dream, a future, financial rewards, which in reality are unlikely to materialize, but should they be blamed for hoping for the best? Ashley (see below), in one of her scouting pitches, claims no model fails in Japan and they won't return in debt as they would if they are sent anywhere else, which is clearly - and she knows it! - a lie. The parents are oblivious to the truth of the situation into which their daughters are being sent, and I'd like to think the moms and dads give themselves enough of a hard time for falling for the lies, and believing in the dream that didn't (and rarely does) come true once it all does become clear upon their daughters' return.The perpetrators of what, in my opinion, amounts to borderline child abuse are Ashley Arbaugh, the scout responsible for finding the pre-pubescent girls and Noah and "Messiah", the agency owners she passes them on to.Ashley has obviously been psychologically damaged by her own time in the modeling industry (and possible dabble into other sideline activities - prostitution, perhaps? - which she alludes to by mentioning she had been a "bad girl"), a fact that is borne out physically in the form of a large cyst and fibroid she has to have surgically removed. She is clearly not healthy in the body, nor the head. She has a horrible lack of depth, acknowledging but then brushing aside the seedy side of the industry she feeds, even going so far as to refer to prostitution as "normal". Her morals have clearly collapsed in the face of an obvious selfish drive to make money. I found her perversely fascinating. Does she have any friends? Who would want to hang out with her? She mentions wanting a baby - but would anyone actually date her?... And cold-hearted it may sound but I truly hope she never actually has one, god forbid a daughter.As for the men who run the agencies, I have two words: "pedophile pimps". "Ugh" is how I feel having watched this documentary. What a sordid world and how callous human beings can be. Very sad.

[...]The film is obviously dark and upsetting, but it left me with so many unanswered questions. Perhaps in our age of America's Next Top Model, the directors expected a certain base understanding of the modeling industry, but I could have used some more guidance. I would have appreciated a narrator or on-screen captions saying things like "This is a recruiter. It is the recruiter's job to…" or "Nadya is now auditioning for…" Maybe I just have a way below average understanding of modeling, but the whole time I kept asking myself very basic questions that could have been easily explained, and would have made for a much more educational film.Additionally, the filmmakers failed to elaborate on certain themes that were mentioned in passing, often by Ashley (who was an utter enigma as a character, hovering between denial and insanity). Themes like prostitution and sex trafficking, and illegal underage models. These are issues that could use some unpacking. Ashley would say something like, "We all know that some girls turn to prostitution (though she never even says the word), but I don't have any first-hand evidence of that," and then she would move onto another topic. I think in cases like this, it is the filmmakers role to step in; if not to press Ashley further in the interview than at least to provide the audience with a statistic or something. However, the directors seemed determined to keep the narrative confined to the claustrophobic world of the characters that they were following, leaving the audience to scratch their heads and speculate. Additionally, with no additional information, the viewer is left with no idea about the scope of the problem. Are situations like this the exception or the rule? Are they limited to Japan, or to this one particular agency, or should we now assume that any photograph we see in a fashion magazine has a crying Russian child behind it? What can we do to prevent situations like this? We simply are never given any of the answers.Girl Model was an engaging and disturbing documentary, though it left me wanting to know more. It showed us the characters and told us their story, but left out a lot of the context necessary to create a holistic understanding. I'll probably end up trying to do some more research about the topic to answer some of the questions that I had, but it would have been nice it the directors had done that work for me.Read the full review here: http://mattreviewsstuff.com/2012/04/25/girl-model/