Voces inocentes (2004)

English Title: Innocent Voices.
Synopsis: Chava is a boy of eleven, living in 1980's civil war-ridden El Salvador. His life is punctuated by the fear of the flying bullets from the conflicts between the National Army and the guerilla in the shantytown where he lives; also by the anxiety regarding his approaching twelfth birthday which will make him old enough for Army draft.
Appraisal: A well-structured screenplay is the main virtue of this film. Everything happens in the proper manner as to enlighten all the aspects of the story and get it going. Unfortunately, that is as far as the virtues of the film will go. The finer details of the screenplay, and what one would call 'direction' -- for the lack of a better word -- are badly mishandled. Character interplay and dialogue are of a primitive sort, lacking spontaneity and building the characters as no more than cardboard figures. Every possible effect -- slow motion, music, etc -- is crammed in whenever it is wished to enhance the emotion, thus producing the exact opposite effect and killing it. Of course the story has such shocking aspects that it is interesting by itself, but anybody expecting vigorous filmmaking will be sorely disappointed. The film does not place emphasis on the political aspect, preferring to focus on the personal level of things, but there is an unequivocal leftist slant in the way the story is told. Otherwise, why would the final caption make it a point to tell us the details of the U.S.A. financing of the Salvadoran government? Many reviewers pointed out that the recruitment of children, as well as the brutality of methods, was not exclusive of the pro-government side; they say that these were characteristics of the guerilla as well. Of course, the film is not obliged to show everything -- it is the story as told from the point of view of a little boy, who could not have experienced everything that was happening then. But I think that, in that case, the caption should have been used to even things out a little, instead of making them even more one-sided.
Rating: 49.