SnoopyStyle
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.
Dalbert Pringle
If you don't believe that "certain" modelling agencies are, in fact, recruiting naive, young girls (as young as 12) for the sole purpose of prostitution, then watch "Girl Model" and you just may change your viewpoint on that matter.My 2 biggest beefs regarding this 2011 documentary is that I felt its editing was way too uneven and (most importantly) that it just didn't dig deep enough into its investigation of modelling agencies (that are located as far away as Siberia) whose calculating "scouts" are recruiting 13-year-old girls (who are, sadly enough, being treated like disposable goods).But, with that said - "Girl Model" certainly did paint a very negative picture of the modelling business. This, of course, is a business that continues to thrive today even though it, unfortunately, lacks basic labour protection for the girls that are hired.All-in-all - I thought that "Girl Model" was well-worth a view.
alex Turner
When most people think of models they think of glitz and glamour and beautiful women. Girl Model flips that image on it's head and shows the real ugly side of the modeling industry. This documentary follows Nadia, a shy and sweet natured thirteen year old from rural Siberia. She wins a modeling contract and gets to go to Japan. She hopes her work as a model will support her family. She is "discovered" by American model scout Ashley. This documentary has no shortage of creeps and crazies but Ashley takes the cake. A former model herself, Ashley travels around Russia looking for the youngest and freshest faces to send to some creep in Japan that calls himself "Messiah". It's basically 1 step short of all out child trafficking. Ashley say's she feels bad about it but that's kind of hard to believe. She seems to enjoy living in her Connecticut mansion complete with creepy anatomically correct baby dolls, specialty made boxes for storing creepy fetish photos of teenage girl's feet and mounds of tape titled "Russian Teens" a little too much. As a young model she made creepy tapes of herself. I hope for her sake she was on drugs. Later on she gets fibroids and cysts and act's like she's pregnant. Umm OK.. Personally, I think Ashley should hold off on her next trip on the trans-siberian railway and instead check herself into the closest mental hospital stat. I'd feel bad for her if she wasn't so casually evil. As for Nadia, she lives in a tiny apartment in Japan. For a while she has a roommate, Madlen but she gets sent home for gaining an inch on her waist. She doesn't have any sort of chaperon and she doesn't speak English or Japanese. Nadia, barely gets work in Japan and in the end leave the country $2000 in debt to her agency. Her story isn't unique. Unfortunately as long as the fashion industry demands super young models and young girls from poor countries like Russia are willing to take these risks, and psychopaths like Ashley are willing to profit from these practices nothing will change for young girls like Nadia.
Claudia Aidualc
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.
