Children Underground

Today I went to see the film Children Underground, which for those who haven't seen it, portrays a "family" of five children who live on the streets of Bucharest, Romania. First of all, I thought it extremely interesting to note the discrepencies between the children's account of their
home life, complaining that it was terrible, and their parent's assurance that nothing was wrong before their children left home. Despite the parents' convincing stories that they did not beat or mistreat their children in any way, it is obvious that most families were overwhelming poor, living at the very bottom of the poverty rate. I thought that the children's decision to run away from home, especially the little girl who took her eight-year-old brother with her, was a good example of what we talked about today regarding deviants of society. I believe that this tragic occurrance of street children could be looked upon as an anomie from the functionalism perspective. This is because the parents were suffering economic strife, or there was a breakdown in the family unity, resulting in children running away to "be free" on the streets, where there is certainly a sense of nomlessness, because there are no adults to tell them how to behave. This issue can also be addressed as a result best understood by the Conflict Theory. Children such as Ana and her brother Marian grew up in an extremely impoverished situation, and they most likely experienced systematic denial of access to resources, or were treated unfairly by social institutions. Their mother experienced this as well, but the children dealt with it differently by running away to live on the streets in the city. They probably felt that it was a better place for them to live, in that they had some control over how much money they had (from begging), as well as some means of "escape" from people who treated them unfairly. I just thought that it helped to understand the children's predicament in the movie as a type of anomie, as well as a result of conflict theory pressures that ultimately caused extreme deviance in society. I was wondering if anyone else had insights to this movie, or if you had even seen it? I recommend it if you haven't. . .