Innocent Voices, Men with Guns, and Machuca are all Latin American films that depict an existence that many of us would otherwise never have exposure to.  These film makers used this opportunity to tell a greater story, to paint a different picture of what some people have to call life.  The corruption and inhumanity that takes place is often unfathomable, but when you bring children into the mix, it’s almost too much to take.   These great writers and directors depicted a place and time when there were no boundaries or laws to protect the innocent people who were affected by the events of war.   These stories are important to educate all of the life and culture that people, especially children, who experience every day.

War is a hard, it is even harder when it is not your battle, and you are simply a victim of your surroundings.  All three of these movies show a life of a child who has fallen victim to the violent choices of others.  They are unwillingly drug into the violence in some way or another.   The wars are over power and they don’t care who gets in their way.   The pain, suffering and heartache are portrayed in all three of these movies in a way that the director felt necessary.  Mandoki, Sayles, and Wood all painted a similar but different picture dealing with children and war, violence and evil.

Innocent Voices is the story of the brutal war in El Salvador in the 1980’s as told by and eleven year old boy, Chava.  The village in which they lived was a constant battle ground for the Salvadorian army and guerilla fighters, both attempting to gain control.   The militants would go to the children’s school and “recruit” force any child twelve year of age or older to go fight with them.   Chava and his friend were taken prisoner to be killed. Two of Chava’s friends are shot and just as he was to be executed his uncle showed up and is rescued.

Men with Guns carries a great deal of similarities to Innocent Voices in that it is filled with war and corruption, and the ones who are affected the most are the children.   The purpose of the trip for Dr Humberto Fuentes is to find his prior students who were serving in poor villages, and rumored to be dead.   Innocent Voices focuses on Chava and his struggle to avoid his involvement in the war.   Men with Guns has Conejo as one of the main characters who guided the Dr to the notorious camp where the Dr’s student was rumored to be.  He was a character whose childhood was filled with war, resorted to robbing as a means of survival.  Conejo’s very existence is in a way a symbol of war, in that he was a child of rape, then abandoned by his mother.  However, the main character or focus of this movie is the Dr not the children, even though their roles are just as important in telling the story.

Machuca setting takes place in Chile’s short social era.  The setting of this movie is in a private school based on three main characters Machuca, Gonzalo, and Santiago.  A very different factor than the other two movies is that for a short time these children benefited from the civil unrest, by selling flags and cigarettes at the marches.  For a while, the violence, evil, and war seemed to be going on within these children’s homes and schools more than the events that were taking place on the streets.   However, with any war, there are always victims to the violence.

One thing that Innocent Voices did very well, it tells this story from the perspective of a child.  Children view things differently than adults, they don’t know dangers and concern as much as when you become an adult.   Luis Mandoki portrayed how a child would perceive this war very well.  A part where he brought in the true childish character was when Chava stated, “One day my dad left us and went to the United States in the middle of the war. My mom did not say good-bye to him. She said to me now I was the man of the house. But first I had to pee.”  That was a perfect portrait of what a child would do if they were actually in that give situation.