Though focusing on a specific time, place, and people, Werner Herzog's narration and translation at various points accentuates (if in fewer words) how the subject matter examined here could just as easily apply elsewhere and otherwise. The story of the Miskito in the mid-1980s is one of a people living on their own, affecting and harming no one, but nevertheless being subjected to a larger entity that demands, takes, and enforces while conferring no tangible benefit by their presence or power. The precise politics of any party, good or ill, are beside the point, as these are events that have played out time and again around the world, even from those who have criticized the same practices in other countries. And that little factoid makes 'Ballad of the little soldier' even more haunting than it already was primed to be, for while a broad portrait is painted, as the very title suggests the ultimate inspiration and primary focus is on child soldiers. Whether employed as tools of oppression, or borne from utmost desperation, there are few crimes against humanity more abhorrent than the child soldier; one is swiftly made to reconsider the ethics of giving kids toy weapons, or the unbridled glorification of militaries. This is surely among the most dreary of all Herzog's films.
With all this said, 'Ballad of the little soldier' is just as expertly assembled as any of its brethren as the filmmaker illuminates the Miskito's lives at this juncture. The opening shot alone is distinctly haunting, shifting then to a series of interviews through an interpreter and otherwise footage highlighting the surrounding environs and the circumstances that have been thrust upon the indigenous people. A little more than half the runtime is more or less devoted to a panoramic view of how the Miskito had suffered under the Sandinistas, with many sobering personal anecdotes communicating the urgency. That urgency is only amplified in the last portion of the movie that spotlights the child soldiers during their training, and in their own words tells why they supposedly wish to fight. Cap all this off with a few choice words from Herzog's friend and collaborator, Denis Reichle, and the end result is a documentary that even the expectedly exquisite technical craft can't keep from being notably disconcerting.
Herzog's pictures whole-heartedly embrace examinations of the diversity and complexity of the human condition, whatever form it may take, and no few trend toward a more dour reflection thereof. What takeaway image could be more harsh than that obtained from glancing at humanity in one of the corners of the world in which people are doing horrific things to one another; in which tranquility and harmony is shattered; in which innocence is so completely lost that pre-teen children become the objects and tools of that violence? The film that follows from this third-party observation is discomforting on an almost visceral level, such that I find it hard to in any way repeat back some of what is conveyed herein. If there's one thing art has demonstrated over time, however, it's that evocation of such reaction is no mark against quality; for as grim as the content is, 'Ballad of the little soldier' is all the more remarkable for what it stirs in us. Between the access Herzog had to create this, to the method taken in fashioning the movie, and beyond, this is very well made and deserving, and perhaps even crucial as an exemplar of that dire message that we "don't look away" - only, viewer discretion is strongly advised.
