Innocent Voices

A film set during the civil war in El Salvador. Chava is eleven. His father has gone, his mother is raising three children alone, and the house sits directly on the line of fire. At night bullets go through the walls and the family gets under the beds. The town's real problem is something else. Every year the army comes to the school, reads names from a list and takes the boys who have turned twelve. Chava's birthday is a few months away. The film is about that wait. The children climb onto the roofs to hide from the soldiers; they try to hold lessons at school; some join the guerrillas. The method is a child's eye. The causes of the war are not explained; only how daily life becomes impossible. The radio, football and first love stand in the same scenes as the guns. The story is true: the man who wrote the screenplay spent his childhood in these conditions and told his own life. Carlos Padilla plays Chava and Leonor Varela his mother. Luis Mandoki directed. It was shot in Mexico and won international awards. A shattering example for anyone who likes war stories and child-centred drama. Before you watch, know this: the film takes the conscription of children as its direct subject and the scenes are heavy.