lost children

my boyfriend and i went to the movies yesterday. not just any movie, but part of the human rights film festival. our screening for the evening was lost children…about ugandan children abducted and forced to fight in a war that is more mass murder than even war is usually.

the movie spins in the direction of how these children are exploited. how they are taken at 8 or 9 or even 12 because they are small and cannot fight back, because they take orders, because they know nothing else but to do as they are told.

all at once they are children, smiling cheekily as they speak of the horrors they have seen – they have done. or when old enough to truly understand – eyes cast down and whispers wondering if god can forgive them.

and walking home we discussed it…the why, the how, the how much longer. on the way we talked about the horrors that the film brought to light. and then the conversation turned…to subtelties…

subtleties like a scene where one of the boys goes to take a bath and the shot pans out enough to see him take off his pants, standing naked in full light, in full view. his 8 year old nakedness hanging in the air, magnified on a movie screen.

and people will probably argue that there is a bigger story here and not to get caught up in the details. but it is the details that leave the lasting impression. this little black naked boy standing exposed for no particular reason. it added nothing to the film. his powerless naked frame added nothing to the film except another layer of me wondering when his powerlessness in all of this will end.

a detail. a small detail. but i wonder if anyone stopped to consider that detail for him…i wonder how many would have considered it for their own children.

lost indeed…