Trade [DVD] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

I personally think that Director Marco Kreutzpainter has handled what is after all a difficult and sensitive subject with great care and consideration and yet present a film that keeps the viewer interested completely all the way through, waiting to see if either Adriana OR Veronica will manage to avoid their horrible fates? BEWARE SPOILERS. With Veronica (Alicja Bachleda) having bought her way into Mexico on the promise and high expectancy of a well-paid job that she hoped was going to provide a secure life for her and her young son, she and another Polish girl are met at the airport where they are bundled into a PSV. The other girl escapes but runs into a vehicles path and is killed.Veronica is taken to a safe house where Adriana is. Adriana(Paulina Gaitan) is a 12yr old Mexican schoolgirl kidnapped off the street while riding her new bike, a present from her brother. Nobody saw the kidnap which took place on the territory of a different Gang-boss to where she lived.Veronica is raped and beaten at the safe house to introduce her to the ways of the criminals and to teach her to obey.......or else!She is told the gang know her address in Poland and where her son can be found, he can be introduced to the same life unless she does as she is told. What can she do? What will she do? What will happen to Adriana, will she be saved or sold to the sex trade? Brilliantly acted by Kevin Kline, Cesar Ramos, Kate Del Castillo, Mario Perez, Pasha Lychnikoff

Money, it's a hit. Dont give me that do goody good b..., June 26, 2008

I liked this movie. Not because of the inherent qualities of it as a movie but because of the message it was trying to convey.

Judging from some of the reviews out there some people are trying to make more out of implied politics than it genuinely contained.

The fact of the matter is that there are slaves in the world and some of them live in our world, whether we like it or not. Some of the best selling non-fiction works of the last few years have been about the trafficking of people across borders. Every once in a while a story surfaces about people who abuse slaves in their homes IN AMERICA, people who are often good citizens.

The dramatisation in this story does leave something to be derired but it is a very human tale of people who care in a commodity based world where the lives and existance of some people count for nothing. Indeed some of the reviews reflect that viewpoint.

In my view Trade does nothing more than open a chink in a blind. To get public attention on a worthwhile cause is difficult enough in a corporate media world and sometimes anything that can get a worthwhile message across to even a few people is worthwhile doing anyway.

Trade sends out an emotional message. Ask any mother how she would feel and act if her child was stolen and some understanding will be gained. If that message requires some additional drama to help than perhaps that is a good thing.

There is no such thing as a perfect movie, otherwise none of us would have anything to write about. I would encourage everyone who reads and writes on such pages as these to encourage as many people as possible to watch this movie and then to ask your local opinion formers what they are doing to end the scourge of slavery. And anyway, how many of us are aware of the slaves in our towns and cities? Are we so sure that such things could never happen where we live?

This is a film I watched on C4 long ago and had forgotten all about it. A chance encounter with its title made me buy it. I watched uniterrupted. A very humane story of sexual exploitation has been beautifully and very realistically depicted. Direction, actng and narration is of highest grade. Most harrowing was watching one of the girl mecilesly thrown in water who drowns as she did not know swimming. Just put yourself in her position for a while and the enormity of the horror will become a sort of nightmare. We may ask , does this sort of thing really happens ? Answer is yes and it happens on industrial scale. Recently in my town eight East European girls were rescued. The pimps ranged in age from 23 to 64 years.
A must watch film, and it must be shown in Eastern European countries in schools and homes to make every girl aware of this despicable trade and warn them to remain on guard.