Highway Courtesans

Filmed at intervals between 1995 and 2004, Mystelle Brabbee's oddly insubstantial documentary aims to open a window onto India's rural Bachara subculture, in which prostitution is a family business passed from one generation of women to the next. The Bachara work in small, government-sanctioned villages alongside India's highways, servicing long-haul truckers whose work keeps them from their families for long stretches. The film's center is Guddi, who lives in one such village in Central India with her extended family. We first meet her as a teenager, and she's an articulate guide to Bachara customs. Traditionally, she says, only eldest daughters (like her) go into t...