Voces inocentes
Tags: murder

Plot synopsis:
In 1986, Chava is a young 11-year-old boy from El Salvador. His father escaped to the United States at the start of the civil war when he was only 5. His family lives in a small town of Cuscatancingo that is currently heavily fought over between the Salvadoran army and the El Salvador guerrillas. His mother makes a living for the family by sewing, and Chava sells the clothes in shops. When he's not in school, Chava works for a bus driver announcing stations for him as a part-time service to help his family with money.
He is nearing his twelfth birthday, when the Salvadoran military forces will recruit him into active service against the guerillas. Chava witnesses the army recruiting twelve-year-old children from his school inside, and also witnesses a 10-year-old recruited when he trips another boy as a bad prank on him, and he is violently restrained after he tries to run away, and his teacher is almost shot while trying to defend him.
One day, his uncle Beto, who has joined the guerrillas, comes to visit Chava's family. Beto wants to take Chava with him so the military can't recruit him, but Chava's mother is against it. Beto gives a radio to Chava and tells him how to listen to the guerrillas' banned radio station, Venceremos. Throughout the scenes in the village where they live, there are firefights between government and rebel forces, as the settlement is on the border of the conflict. Chava knowingly plays a song banned by the Salvadoran Army in front of the soldiers, but the town's priest saves him by playing the same song over the church's loudspeaker, focussing the soldier's attention away from Chava.
During class, Chava falls in love with a girl in his class named Cristina Maria. The guerrillas attack the army from the school building and the school is closed. Kella and her family move out of town to her mother's house in a safer area. One of the guerrillas, Raton, tells Chava of the army's next recruitment day, and Chava and his friends warn the entire town to hide their children. Chava decides to visit Cristina Maria but only finds the bombed-out shell of her house. He and his friends decide to join the guerrillas, but they are followed and the guerrilla camp is attacked by the army.
Chava and his friends are taken from the camp, and forcibly marched to an unknown destination, repeating the opening scene. It appears to be an execution ground on a riverbank, where other bodies litter the scene. Ancha, the mentally handicapped local from Chava's village is seen to have been hanged. The soldiers begin to shoot the boys one by one, and two of them are killed. Chava is next in turn, but at the last moment he is saved by a guerrilla attack. He runs back into the undergrowth right into a raging firefight. After seeing a guerrilla get killed by a government soldier, Chava feels he should fight against them. He picks up the rifle, but realizes the government soldier is another young boy who he knew in school. He cannot bring himself to kill his old friend, another human. He flees, and the camera shows the boy he was aiming at, who realizes that his life was in another child's hands. Chava runs home to find his mother in the burnt out ruins of their house. She decides to send him to the United States to prevent him being caught by the authorities, and he promises to return and rescue his brother before he too turns twelve.
In 1992, six years later, it is shown that he also rescued his brother and brought him into the United States, and the war has ended.

Review: I remember visiting during war time, seeing soldiers with their guns, though i was a very young child unaware of the true situation.This movie brought to light the horrible scenes and awful truths of the atrocities that occurred during the war, and that still happen in warfare today.
The film depicts the story of Chava, an 11 year-old boy, whose main concern is that as soon as he turns 12 he will be recruited by the Military to fight the Guerillas.
Though it is set in El Salvador, this could be a story from anywhere around the world, where a Civil War breaks out and the effects on its own people.The characters are well written; the plot well told and the actors, especially, the kid playing Chava are very good.
I cried remembering those nights when bullets were flying over my house.WAR is a crime no matter what the objective is and specially if innocence is stolen from children.The movie travels through every place in which children are forced to take a weapon in their innocent hands: Africa, Middle-East, Asia, Colombia, etc; or to every place in which children suffer the consequences of war.For those who has not lived a war by themselves and enjoy watching the news about IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, ISRAEL, COLOMBIA it is time to think about what you can do in order to stop this human massacre in the name of "freedom" ..
I just read all of your comments guys..it doesn't matter which side mistreated kids more..the fact is kids were recruited to fight...i come from Lebanon, a country that knew 15 years of civil war..and yes in my country too, kids fought side to side with militias..."Voces Innocentes" is for me a very sad movie..it tickles our state of mind in the sense that it reminds us that life isn't as pleasant anywhere else on earth..here El Salvador is shown torn by civil war, but elsewhere daily wars are still going on (Darfour in Ethiopia, Sida in Africa, poverty in India...) I received the movie from Mexico..It is a shame it was only shown here in Canada in Toronto's Film Festival..Movies like "Voces Innocentes" should be made known to the public...Instead of bombarding people with loads of commercial pointless movies, let them think for a change....
A Truly Moving Picture "explores the human journey by artistically expressing hope and respect for the positive values of life."The film is set in war-torn El Salvador in the early 1980s.
They also rape girls, execute anyone they are suspicious of regardless of age and sex, and harass the Catholic Church and its priest.This story is told via a poor family consisting of a Mother, a 11-year old son (Chava), and a younger brother and older sister.
The film, set in El Salvador during the years of civil war in the '80s, is told through the voice and eyes of 11-year old Chava.
Boys were forcefully drafted into the army and thrown into battle-infested areas as soon as they reached 12, sometimes younger (amazing that this movie neglected to depict the fact that the guerrillas were worse, they took kids at 9 years of age and gave them Ak-47's to attack military bases).Anyways, I really enjoyed this "coming of age" movie in a war-torn country, at least it was accurate and not preposterous like James Wood's/Oliver Stone's 1985 "Salvador"..
It was an emotionally moving and raw account of a boy's life in a horrific place at a horrific time and hopefully brings spotlight to the plight of hundreds of thousands more children who are in a similar fate today in many parts of our world.The movie makes you ask yourself how man can treat its own offspring in such a callous and cold manner.
Had it no been for a teacher who cared about him and was strong enough to literally pull Oscar from the life of a gang-member, take him to the track and field coach to get him involved in sports and also help him to explore his liking for poetry, his life may have been much different today.One other issue that this movie leads you to explore is our inability to counsel and rehabilitate these children who have been through more as a child emotionally in their tattered youth than most go through in their lifetime.
When governments are finally pressured into taking action and rescuing these children from their plight, we leave them to fix their battered bodies and souls by themselves.I thought this movie told the story about a child and his family during a horrific time in El Salvador's history and brought to the forefront a several current global problems that many have chosen to ignore.
The story of a 11-year-old boy and his family who live in El Salvador during the times of civil war.
The story of a 11-year-old boy and his family who live in El Salvador during the times of civil war.
i liked it because i know a lot of people in my country found themselves in the same situation, and i've heard so many stories about what it was like during the civil war, i've read books about it, and it matches so perfectly with the movie it amazed me.
A great nationalism helped the army from recruiting, young men presented themselves at the age of 18.Another fact, soldiers and guerrilla people didn't go into schools, and priests wore jeans and t-shirt.Tradition such as those balloons with fire aren't from El Salvador, and the accent or some words like "orale" are Mexican, Chava is not even a Salvadorian nickname, or kella...The good things about it: Salvadorean women are like that, they fight until death if is possible for their children, they are strict and hardworking, the country houses are represented very realistic, the kids eating mango from the trees, and the houses near the river...
This movie is about an 11 year- old boy who has to make tough decisions or who is involved in the chaos that was the civil war in El Salvador between 1980-1992.
"Voces inocentes" is the powerful, tightly-directed--yet difficult-to-watch--story of a group of pre-teenage children caught in the madness of El Salvador's civil war.
As the movie bounces back and forth between happy scenes of children playing and the staccato bursts of machine gun fire, the audience senses that things will end badly.This is clearly a political film, but director Luis Mandoki appears to have two conflicting messages that he wants to send.
The soldiers destroyed the house of his girlfriend and decided to go with the warriors but the soldiers cached them, kill to children but Chava scape, finally hi found her mother crying for him thinking he is dead, he left his country and 6 years later see his family again.
The young actor Carlos Padilla ("Chava")delivers a brilliant performance, all the casting is right, the movie feels immediate and its characters feel like real live people.
Everything was outstanding - for example the editing (beautiful), the acting (three thumbs up if that's possible), the cinematography and the director's vision (eye candy), the screenplay (fantastic), the music (completely in sync with the mood every time and it actually seemed like the music had created the film), the casting (where do you find these people?
Consummated, exquisite and utterly hardcore, Innocent Voices is the kind of movie that imprints those two or three masterfully created scenes on your unconscious that, after you leave the theater, next week, next year forever, you are reminded that you have it easy and you should be grateful for that.Although this movie is base directly on a war in an specific place and time, it never becomes a documentary, not even a commentary about such conflict, instead, goes above the good and evil, the right and wrong, life and death and  to the credit of the director, Mr. Mandoki  the film mirrors an 11 year-old boy's recognition of reality and his ways to deal with it.Relentless.
The film centers around a young 12-year-old boy Chava, in danger of becoming recruited by the military in El Salvador's brutal civil war; and partly around his mother, abandoned by her husband, struggling to keep her family together in wartime.
I was 12 years old during the time of the Iran-Contra scandals, and I am very happy to finally see that a film of such power that addresses the war in El Salvador.
A gripping and convincing looking picture about one village's experiences during the Salvadoran civil war of the 80's, with a touching performance by Luis Padilla as Chava, an eleven year old facing forced recruitment into the army on his twelfth birthday.
Living in the Eye of War. INNOCENT VOICES (Voces inocentes) is a 2004 film from Mexico that relates a true story about he civil war in El Salvador from 1980 - 1992.
It is a disturbing film in that in addition to relating the terror of living in a land where war raises it's spectral head randomly at day or night, but the focus of the film is on the fact that once boys reached the age of twelve years they were forcibly conscripted to become killing soldiers.According to the way history books have defined this war, 'The Salvadoran Civil War (1980- 1992) was a conflict in El Salvador between the military-led government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or umbrella organization of five left-wing guerrilla groups.
Countless disappeared and More than 75,000 people were killed.'The story is brought to life by following a young boy Chava (Carlos Padilla in an outstanding performance) whose father left El Salvador for the US in 1980 leaving Chava as the man of the house for this mother Kella (Leonor Varela, in another fine performance) and his brother and sister.
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.
Being born in El Salvador and at a young age being a witness to the Civil War that almost torn our country apart, I was impressed by how well it was all represented through this film.
Innocent Voices is one of the movies that affected me emotionally the most out of everything I've seen.The directing and story telling is excellent in that it is told through the eyes of a 12 year old boy living in perilous times.
This powerful and eye opening portrayal of the civil war in El Salvador is beautifully done and enough to make anyone experience a plethora of emotions during this heartfelt story.Another aspect that truly makes this film amazing is the outstanding acting performances by every character, most notably Carlos Pidilla who absolutely made the movie for me with his performance.
The movie opens with the hard truth that the children are mostly likely about to be executed for their involvement with the guerrillas and the narrator set the frame of telling the story of his last year of childhood.
The story follows Chava an 11 year old boy and his friends facing the reality of being drafted into the El Salvadoran military once they turn age 12 during the civil war in the 1980's.
In this film, the spoken language is Spanish and the main character of the story is an 11 year old boy, named Chava.
In the Drama/Thriller , Innocent Voices (Mexico 2004) by Mexican director, Luis Mandoki, is a coming of age story revolved around Chava, an 11 year old boy living in El Salvador.
This film focuses on Chava and his friends just wanting to live a normal kids life during the time of the Civil War in the 1980's.
This film does a good job at displaying everyday life for not just children, but all of the people living in El Salvador during the war.
The UN report indicates that indeed only 5 percent of any human rights violations were committed by the opposition fighters; also it was proved as indicated in the same UN report, that the FMLN guerrilla fights were not responsible for massacres of civilians however the military government and the associated death squads were found to be responsible for the majority.The movie also brought up the interesting issue regarding the activist role the church played in El Salvador trying to resolve the conflict.
This movement advocated that praying was not enough to end the terrible poverty and oppression of the peasants who were the majority of the population of El Salvador.In closing, Innocent Voices is a well-made movie, a simple story with likable characters and beautiful and realistic cinematography.
Innocent Voices is based on the true story of a young boy growing up in war torn El Salvador.
Luis Mandoki writes and directs a very real and suspenseful film, which follows the difficult daily life of a young boy and his family amidst the civil war in El Salvador during the 1980s.
It is a grand reminder of what humanity should be, and what we can make it over petty issues.Though there were warm, funny and touching moments I cried, felt scared and angry through the entire movie and was left contemplative for quite a while after viewing it.It's a struggle of a mother with abandonment issues trying to keep the rest of her family together in a war, during her sons rapid coming of age and the circumstances surrounding their village and the life they must live there.
This one is definitely a movie that i'll recommend to anyone anywhere to watch...brilliant work by the director, extremely earthly presented scenes, beautiful touching story revealed in hard times of living.
"Innocent Voices (Voces inocentes)" is a beautiful looking dramatization of the impact of civil war on children and and families, in this case the drawn-out war between the U.S.-backed government of El Salvador vs.
I have no idea who were the bads guys, the Army or the Guerrillas, and I don't think Chava or his family ever knew throughout the film, but the story was told wonderfully.Chava is a real star and the acting throughout is incredible.
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.
Although, "I" personally greatly appreciated the "movie" mainly because, it SHARES one person's individual experience and it also unknowingly makes an attempt to educate this society on the realities of war and its effects on those caught in the middle of it; my partner says he did not like the inaccuracies in the military's "recruiting" tactics because from his personal experience he saw the guerrilla, not the army, recruiting young boys from within the schools.
It's no surprise that this was a true story, according to the wrap-up at the end.The movie that many scenes most brought to my mind was "Bloody Sunday," because both films really make you feel like you're right there in the middle of the action, as horrifying as that would be.
This is a sensitive and detailed account of 11 year old Chava, portrayed movingly by Carlos Padilla, growing up during some of the most violent times during the civil war in El Salvador in the 1980's.
I just saw this movie two days ago and i must say i expected more but i really wasn't disappointed all thought its very powerful I did see tiny details that really affected the movie like the accents used by a few cast members or the license plates on the bus but other than than it is very powerful but yet it captures the innocence of the children they are not bad kids they are scared """"SPOILER""" The scene were Chava picks up the AK 47 ready to shoot and army soldier and then sees that the soldier is child it shows us the innocence being broken but the humanity that overcomes it its very powerful and hands down that Padilla "Chava" Performance is excellent i think that he carried the movie all the way, he has great charisma and you really want him to be safe and overcome all the obstacles that are put in his path and like i said earlier don't forget it is a true story because i read some comment about not being true and that government soldiers didn't recruit well from what i know its not true one of my friends is from El Salvador and his family had fled to the US and he did tell me that it was because of the recruiting and that there was no safe place, both sides were recruiting children, he was 12 years old when i met him he had just arrived..
I appreciated that even though the movie took place during a war with all of it's horrors, the director still took time to show the innocence of children by shooting scenes of them playing, laughing, and having fun together.
The civil war that was going on in El Salvador was very harsh on the people living there, but I don't need to tell you all about it, just watch the film.
Great film about the Civil War in El Salvador.
This film is about an eleven year old boy named Chava who is affected by the Civil War occurring in his village in El Salvador.
I really enjoyed this film, because Chava who was scared to be recruited into the army knowing that he was turning twelve soon, set the movie to become so captivating to watch.
I think the movie did a good job of showing the horrible situation in El Salvador during its civil war and the struggles of its citizens.
One of the best movies out there on the caste war effects on the lives of a family in El Salvador.