Clean

A fantastic insight into an industry we know little about - the workers who clean up after hoarders and terrible crimes and deaths. I like how some of the cleaners are able to reveal some of their lives and thoughts. The city of Melbourne gets some lovely cinematography as well as showing some of its grubbier side. But of course it's the cleaning company founder, trans woman Sandra, who is the star. She's suffered a lot of blows in her life and my guess is she's a lot tougher than we see her here. But she comes across as kind and funny. There's a great scene showing her alone in a room - she has had to keep her distance from people due to being hurt so often. But she survived and in the end, succeeded in life.

I was very touched by this documentary. The flashbacks are well done and alternate with the current description of the company created by Sandra. In the end, it's a double portrait: a tribute to an extraordinary woman and a perspective on the special business of cleaning scenes affected by different kinds of trauma (suicide, crimes, neglect, addiction).

Sandra comes out as both a strong and vulnerable person. Strong because her resilience is exceptional, vulnerable because the hardships from the past took a toll on her health and she is now struggling to remain autonomous and active. I liked how she radiates with kindness and how kindness is not seen as weakness but rather as a combination of bravery, compassion and commitment.

Sandra's life story is both disheartening and admirable. She suffered immensely since childhood, being adopted into an abusive family. Added on the top was her gender identity issues. Her mental health problem also forced her to leave her (his) family behind. However, after those life traumas, prostitution and rape, she recovered and rediscovered herself. The cleaning business gave her an opportunity to redeem herself and help others. Her own life experience enabled her to see others' life traumas in a different light with care, compassion and empathy.

The documentary also shed light on the trauma cleaning business, including cleaning for hoarders and people who lost ability to look after themselves. The staff in Sandra's business displayed decent values and attitude towards others, no matter how badly they have failed themselves. I like one of the worker's comment: we all are just a few mistakes away from living like them. So true!

I found this story fascinating about the behind scenes of a cleaning business but felt very sorry for Sandra as it glorified prostitution, drug use and adoption issues which many of us have been through much worse than she has ever dreamt about. There wouldn't have been much opposition in creating a business like this as how many people would even contemplate doing it.

She was a very self centred person the way she kept talking about and continually promoting herself just for book sales. I felt extremely sorry for her.

It didn't leave me with any sense of human strength just a over glorified story written to help promote her book and TV ratings.

Coming in I really thought it was going to be more about the business of cleaning up crime scenes, but to my surprise it went so much deeper and revealed a very personal and courageous story. You need to watch this. Definitely worth your time no matter what you believe in, this is a very good documentary! I live for documentaries and I did some last minute research on what to watch. This came up on recent Amazon docs and i saw it was only 7.2 but the preview seemed pretty good so I gave it a chance. All I have to say is WOW! Great story and great production! You won't be disappointed! This is worth a watch and it should be rated at least 7.5 or higher maybe even an 8.