Near the end of director Luis Mandoki's film Innocent Voices, the lead character, 11-year-old Chava, must choose whether to kill another boy while in the midst of a firefight between El Salvadoran army troops and guerillas with the FMLN. Sadly, it is a choice made by too many children throughout the world today. Though the setting of the film is in the turbulent early 80's El Salvador, the wartime experiences it recounts are still being replayed.
Based on the life of its screenwriter, Oscar Torres, Innocent Voices is arguably one of the most powerful movies ever made about the impact of war on civilians. As a young person growing up in the Central American nation, Torres and his peers feared reaching twelve years old, as that was the age at which the government army forcibly recruited boys to fight the leftist insurgency. Courageously, he and director Mandoki evoke a bitter, humane narrative which laudably does not shy away from the emotional and physical damage wrought by conflict.
Over the last several years, I have documented the lives of war-affected children living on both sides of the gun throughout the world, including nations still fighting such as Colombia, Sri Lanka and Uganda. Until recently, journalists, interested observers, and humanitarian workers only knew the hard, cold numbers of the child soldier experience. In more than three dozen conflicts around the globe between 300,000 and 500,000 children under the age of 18 years are actively participating in combat as scouts, cooks, porters, sexual servants and front-line fighters. The only avenues out for these child warriors are capture, risky escape, wounding, or death.
Because of Innocent Voices, we now know so much more about what happens to children when adults fight. The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay once wrote, "Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies." Through Oscar "Chava" Torres' life, we see that for the youngest witnesses to war death is an expectation and hope, faith, and optimism are the first casualties. The El Salvador of his youth was a place where fathers were mostly unseen and adulthood was dreaded.
The graceful Chilean actress Leonor Varela is Chava's mother in the movie, and like so many women whom I met throughout traveling Africa and Latin America, hers is an awe-inspiring, constant well of strength. The first-time actor Carlos Padilla plays Oscar Torres as a child in a performance which can only be described as transcendental. The expression on his face during the climactic scene by a river is bound to haunt viewers for days afterwards. Watching the film, which I've done half a dozen times, I find myself struck by the realism and clarity of its vision.
As a writer who's recently completed a book on child soldiers and war-affected children, I never fail to discover something new. More importantly for me, personally, has been the gift of friendship with Oscar Torres, Luis Mandoki and the film's producer, Lawrence Bender. Sometimes, you find magic in unforeseen collaborations, such as theirs. "Innocent Voices" is graphic, often brutal, but ultimately inspiring. This is a movie which has an aesthetic and social obligation to be seen. Leaving the theater, one hopefully will be moved to advocacy, and action. More information about the film can be found at www.innocentvoicesmovie.com.