Latin American films made their notable début into mainstream cinemas in the early 1980s.  It was received with much skepticism at first, till the viewers began to realize the importance of its content.   Luis Mandoki and Andre Woods had different stories to tell, of a life we could never imagine existed.   Many of us are aware that life in other countries is different than what we know, but most of us could never grasp the true affects of war, especially on the children.  Innocent Voices, and Machuca are films that are hard to watch because they depict a true picture of how the ones we are suppose to protect are the ones who are being victimized the most.   Even more importantly, they portray it from the perspective of the purest and most innocent source, that being of a child.

There are many notable films that deal with Latin American children and the affects of war on them, however these two movies tell it from the children’s perspectives.  Innocent Voices, and Machuca incorporate children’s participation from different standpoints.  In one film they are directly involved, one film they are essentially indirectly involved, more like a reflection of their lives with the war being a backdrop.   Each writer and director portrayed their own version of how to tell a very important story to their viewing audience.

Innocent Voices tells a story through the eyes of eleven year old El Salvadorian boy named Chava.  Chava is caught between the government’s desire to enlist him in the army and the guerrilla’s desire to take him against his will as well.  Both sides recruited the same way, forcing the children to join once they turn twelve.  This created an instinctive fear for boys to reach that age, knowing they would have no option against being drug into war.  A war that was only over power and nothing that these innocent recruits had any need or desire to be involved in.  The government soldiers will routinely invade the sanctuary of the school looking for new recruits, and dragging them off to war.  Inevitably, Chava’s and his mother’s worst fear comes true and he is taken to war with his friends.   This film is different from Machuca in the fact that this twelve year old character was the one narrating this story.  He was the one who was being drug into a war he knew nothing about.   It wasn’t just a war going on around him; it was life and death for Chava.

The second film, Machuca, is not initially about child soldiers but it is about young two young boys who form a friendship in the pre-dawn of the Pinochet era in Chile in 1973. The two boys occupy polar opposite ends of the social spectrum. There is Gonzalo who is well heeled middle-class and hails from a family that supports Pinochet because his policies reflect their financial and social interests. Machuca is from the nearby slum and part of the so-called proletariat. The two boys found a comfort in each others lives, almost escaping from the war they had going on in their own families.  Gonzalo, Machuca and Silvana quickly formed a friendship, and they were pictured as the three musketeers.  The war was going on around them, but for the most part they remained uninvolved. The writer and director showed how these children found an unfamiliar comfort in each others lives amidst the war that was going on all around them  in their country.   A similarity of this film to Innocent Voices is where the solders going to the school and taking certain kids to go to war.  Politics in Innocent Voices is in the background, though the people are constantly affected by the politics, whereas in Machuca, politics is in the foreground interacting with the boys and their families.

Innocent Voices spoke loudly about a time in El Salvadorian history where war and violence was prominent.  Chava’a being taken with his friends from school to join and fight in a war they were afraid of.  Chava having witnessed the execution of his two friends showed the evil capacity of the soldiers.  The burning of Chava’s home town was reflective of the destruction that resulted from the war.  At the beginning of the movie we see Chava and his two friends who have been captured by the army in the guerrilla camp, on a death march to what can only be described as their killing field.  Young Chava warned the viewer that ‘they are going to kill us’. (Mandoki 2004)  Even when the war was not directly affecting Chava, it was going on around them.  The gun fights would start and they were left hiding under tables trying to keep from getting hit from stray bullets.  This war was violent; the soldiers were evil, killing anyone and anything that got in their way.

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