Thank you Nick Pinkerton, what a loving review to a wonderful little film. "Scenes showing the tricky process of acclimatizing a child to new surroundings, and the patchwork of experiences that make up an education—both Asia's and Tairo's—are grounded by entirely affectless performances,". Excellently put. As a father of a 17 month year old that looks eerily similar to little Asia, my heart was ready to burst watching just the simple joy of phenomenal experience, Asia's, and those who experience her simple appreciation of the little things. Often stories about peripheral or marginalized people can have an exploitive tone, a beautification of squalor, the fish tank if you will. At no point in this film was there that feeling. I personally felt that this film is an education in love and being, WITH and for others, and reminded me that the enormous efforts of parents to educate, and keep active and stimulated their kids in after school programs, clubs, etc, etc, often robs them of experiencing their own kids. Parents are so busy trying to keep their own kids busy and assimilated into curriculum based activities that I often think, do they not want to spend time with their kids? That is entirely me, not the film. The film is devoid of any judgments, even judgements that might be levied at the status quo that insist from the outset that we "categorize" the characters as marginalized. Little Girl, simply is, simply a beautiful little film.
