Innocent Voices (2005)

My ex boyfriend is from El Salvador and he was the one that told me about this movie. It was really hard to get a hold of it since I live in Norway. But finally I did, and it was very eye-opening. What people can do to children, so young and so innocent, making them war machines without them even choosing. I am glad I saw this movie. It is horrible to see what life was like during the war, especially from an eleven-year-old's perspective. Also, I thought the filming was significant! I loved the beautiful, also yet sad details that were added in the filming. The actors/actresses were amazing. I wish I could see Chava play in more movies, because he has talent! I will for sure force my friends to watch this movie:)

This is a wonderful moving Mexican movie and it's not a surprise considering that the American neighbor prefers lately to make war movies that glorify their own army and thus totally blind to the fate of the helpless population. At last here, the first evidence of war is dramatically illustrated: it's a meaningless butchery! The opening of the movie is the perfect proof of that: children captured by soldiers! I wait the argument explaining that yes, children are threats and that yes, soldiers must obey all orders! It's such silly and shameful reasons that build the road for war and that extinguish the best of our humanity! All along the movie, disasters and pain grow endlessly and it was really hard to witness all those tragedies!Beyond the war drama, the movie is also an incredible story about childhood: it's funny to see that children look the same all over the world and whatever they have or not a peaceful, comfortable environment. They just need love, friends, education and fun! It was an eye opener to discover that the village was highly striated with the privileged families (his girlfriend) that lives in plain houses and the poor ones that have only in small huts or cabins. But, in the end, at school, they were all equals as they wear the same uniform and between them, they don't make differences.Technically, if the rhythm is sometimes a bit slow, the director offers good visuals. And the cast is just amazing: Leonor is courageous loving single mother and all the kids are amazing.I recommend highly this movie for those who seek a truthful drama that is everything except a political propaganda! In a way, it follows the path of "empire of sun", that is to say a crazy world felt trough the eyes of an innocent child!

Stunning film about the Salvadoran Civil War, told through the eyes of an 11-year-old boy, who, once he hits twelve, will be rounded up with other children and forced into military service, fighting for the US supported government. As shocking as the reality of the subject matter is, the film plays out peppered with good humor as we watch this mischievous little boy and his similarly mischievous friends carry on being children in spite of the horrors unfolding around them. Watching and laughing at these charming children brings a weight of sadness as we know they will soon have to grow up or die.Because the impoverished locals didn't stand a chance against the U.S. funded military machine of El Salvador, they had to resort to guerrilla warfare, which in turn prompted the creation of US sponsored death squads whose role was to spread terror amongst the locals. They did this by killing over 75,000 innocent people.

I really like this movie because is very realistic referring to the civil war in El Salvador. It shows how government and the left hand political view had such a horrible war in El Salvador. I was born in El Salvador at the time when everything was about to finish, but now that I'm an adult is really sad to realized how everything happened, how innocent children were killed. This movie shows the injustice the military force had over those poor and innocents women and children. My parents were not in El Salvador at the time so they never really talk about how the thing worked over the war. After I watched, I asked some of my dad's uncles and they told that it actually was that bad as it's shown on the movie.I can't say too much about it because I wasn't even born when everything happen, but thanks to released such a good movie. It makes people like me to know more about the government point of view and the "guerrilla" thinking. The movie depicts the story of a little boy, "Chava", who lives just with his mother and the military drafted him to fight against the guerrilla. Trough that his story when he had to see how the military killed his best friend and others kids around the edges of 11-12, is how we can have a perception of those injustices against children in general.