INNOCENT VOICES (VOCES INNOCENTES)
Mexico, 2004, 110 minutes, Colour.
Carlos Padilla, Leonor Varela, Jimenez Cacho.
Directed by Luis Mandoki.
Innocent Voices has already been screened at a number of Human Rights Film Festivals in the United Kingdom. It also received a joint award from SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication, and WACC, the World Association for Christian Communication at the SIGNIS international assembly in Lyon in 2005. The film experienced some difficulties in finding US distribution because of its subject: the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980s and the critique of the aid, military and financial, that the US government had given to the El Salvador regime and to the training of Latin American forces at the School of America. It was eventually released and now can be seen here.
Director Luis Mandoki had made a moving film in his native Mexico about a mentally handicapped girl, Gaby, in 1987. It starred Liv Ulmann. It provided an entrée for Mandoki to Hollywood. During the 1990s, he made a string of popular films, American style. They included a story of an alcoholic woman, played by Meg Ryan, When a Man Loves a Woman, a sentimental drama with Kevin Costner and Paul Newman, Message in a Bottle, and, perhaps his best, White Palace, a personal drama with James Spader and Susan Sarandon.
By the beginning of the century, he had become tired of Hollywood projects and wanted to make something substantial and to work in Latin America. Providentially, he met an aspiring actor in Los Angeles, Oscar Orlando Torres, who had not succeeded in making a career for himself but had a story to tell and a screenplay he had written.
He had come from El Salvador with his mother and family. As a young boy during the 1980s, Oscar had experienced the abduction of children, boys about the age of ten. They were taken from reluctant parents by government forces to serve as soldiers in the military or by guerrilla squads to fight with them. The boys are trained, brainwashed into becoming little soldiers and little killers. The setting and location for Innocent Voices is the last town situated between the guerrilla stronghold and the capital.
Mandoki was able to go to Mexico to make his film and to construct sets in the jungle that would create an authentic picture of those times, only twenty years ago.
The situation is familiar to western audiences from the story of the Archbishop of San Salvador, Oscar Romero, who was killed in April 1980. The film immerses the audience in the hardships of an oppressed population. We experience the violent attacks on the town, the bombings and mutilations and deaths. The focus is on the children, the contrast between their lives at home and at school and their lethal transformation as they are drilled by the army commanders and taught how to use weapons.
Seeing this film offers a sober reminder of the induction of children into armies in our times, especially in Sierra Leone and the brutalisation of children in the contemporary war in northern Uganda. The Innocent Voices are turned into the aggressive sounds of lost innocence.
Films like Innocent Voices (and films about Sudan or Iraq or Congo or Zimbabwe or Afghanistan or…) remind us that these wars are their passion and death for so many people, so many children.
Innocent Voices is the kind of film that gives a face to the faceless.
1.The claim for the film? Children’s perspective on war? The human rights awards? Communicating war through story and emotion?
2.The work of the writer, his own experience as a child, family, the war, the escape to the United States? The authentic feel for his dialogue?
3.The work of the director, Mexican background, his time in Hollywood, his reaction to his Hollywood films, filming on a smaller budget in Mexico? Success? International acclaim?
4.The use of Mexican locations for El Salvador: the village, the tin and cardboard houses, the town, the school, the buses, the vehicles, the surrounding jungle, the river? The authentic feel? The musical score?
5.The title, whose voices, children’s, the adult victims of war?
6.The prologue, the boys captured, marching through the mud, their feet hurting, Chava’s voice-over, the introduction to theme? The resumption of this sequence at the end?
7.The information given about El Salvador, the military government, the rebels, the reasons for rebellion, the hardships for the ordinary people, the duration of the war? American dollars, American military training, the School of America? The effect of civil war in the village, men in the military, the guerrillas? Boys taken for the army, for the guerrillas? The toll, the length of the war? Destruction, deaths, refugees?
8.The focus on Chava, his age, the actor’s screen presence, compared with other children, strong screen presence, demanding audience attention? His point of view? Age eleven turning twelve? His life, changed by the war, losing his innocence? Audiences identifying with him?
9.The father leaving, his not coming back, the comment about the suffering of those who leave, their not returning? The mother, noble, her three children, hard work, having to leave them at home, her concern, the dangers, the children at school, at play, the curfew, Chava being late, her worries? Their going to stay with their grandmother? Their uncle as a guerrilla? The suddenness and violence of the raids, the shooting, their having to hide on the floor, under the beds, the baby crying? The daughters and her fear – Chava having to be the man of the household? The bonds of love, the comments on the daughter as breaking wind, the baby and his crying, playing?
10.The military presence, on the streets, the guns, the guerrillas and the attacks? The villagers not understanding where the bullets were coming from? The shooting of the girl next door, the grief of the mother, everyone trying to help? Chava and his being prone to run out into the danger? The dead lying on the street – and the black humour of the drunk out cold and his relatives trying to collect money? The destruction of property?
11.The boys, eleven turning twelve? Their fears of being conscripted? The military and the visit to the school, the boys lining up, the rollcall, the cheeky boy and his being taken out and shot? The friend and his being taken away, their looking at him on the truck? His being seen later, trained as military? The guerrillas warning Chava, the boys hiding on the roof? The reaction of the military? The effect on the children? Chava and his twelfth birthday, taking out the extra candle, his reaction to the cake?
12.The schooling, classes, the teachers, the teacher having a breakdown, the new teacher, her daughter, the notes, the flirting, the kiss, playing together, the balloons and the fireflies? Chava and his concern about her – and her finally disappearing with her mother after a raid?
13.The bus, the driver, Chava and his imagination, getting the job, calling out the stops, the extra money, spending it, bringing it home to his mother, the joy of the job? Responsibility? His continuing to play as if he was a bus driver? The dangers?
14.The portrait of the mother, alone, her hard work, the dresses, Chava trying to sell them, the shops, not selling the dresses?
15.Chava and his friends, their playing, in the trees, toys, making do? The gift of the radio from his uncle? Listening to the guerrilla songs? The role of the priest, in the village, his leadership, his standing against the military, his warning about the radio? His being beaten and taken away? The role of the church in supporting ordinary people?
16.The uncle, his coming home, the music, the song, the shooting, gift of the radio, his leaving? The other guerrillas? Chava’s friend, the warning about conscription, his going off to find him?
17.The last village, the attack, Chava running away, his mother frantic? Her search? The people from the village, the refugees on the bridge, their poor belongings, seeking somewhere safe?
18.The military and the destruction, the capturing of the boys? The retarded friend, his playing the games with them, his friendship with Chava? His being taken, interrogated? Found hanged? The capture of the boys, their march, the grim executions, the little boys being shot? Wanting the friend with his military training to shoot?
19.The guerrillas, the rescue, Chava and his going home, its being burnt out, finding his mother, sharing the grief? The end of life, the mother sending him off on the back of a truck to a new life in the United States?
20.A portrait of the troubles and wars in Central America during the 1980s?
