It seems that heavy snowfall gives us cause to cancel activities - meetings and the like - even when the storm is well over and travel, strictly speaking, is possible. For reasons less than obvious to me, this weekend's snow was someone's excuse for cancelling on me this evening.
I decided to celebrate by seeing a movie that a Mexican friend had recommended to me some months ago. I was not disappointed.
See Voces Inocentes, staring the beautiful Chilean actress Leonor Varela and a cast of children actors that draw even the most detatched viewer into the story.The movie tells the story of Oscar Torres, a young boy growing up in a small town in El Salvador in the 80's, as his country languishes in the throes of the conflict between the US supported Salvadorean army and the equally ruthless Farabundo Marti guerrilla. The indiscriminate and unforgiving effects of the violent civil war are vividly reflected through the lives of Chava (Oscar), his friends and his family.
Although the story and setting are very different, in a way Voces Inocentes reminded me of Fernando Mierelles' City of God.
Both movies seem to transmit a basic truth about our world: if you want to know the reality of the world we've made and what we've become, look through the eyes of the children.
