Underplayed Gems

Ballad of the Little Soldier (1984)

Ballad of the Little Soldier poster
Original title
Ballade vom kleinen Soldaten
Directed by
Werner Herzog
Genre
documentary film
Country
Germany
Runtime
46 min
Rating
6.6 of 10 from 32 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

This documentary shows Miskito Indian children who fight as soldiers against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. It follows these young fighters in their daily lives and combat roles without making a political argument.

soberunflinchinggrimobservationalrawdisturbingrealisticunsentimental

What happens

Ballad of the Little Soldier (German: Ballade vom kleinen Soldaten) is a 1984 documentary film directed by Werner Herzog and Denis Reichle about child soldiers in Nicaragua. The film focuses on a group of Miskito Indians who used children soldiers in their resistance against the Sandinistas. Herzog made and co-directed the film at the request of his friend Denis Reichle, a French-German journalist who himself served as a child-soldier in the Volkssturm at age fourteen in the final days of World War II. Reichle had attempted to make his own film about child soldiers but that project had stalled and he approached Herzog for help. The film is often cited as Herzog's most explicitly political, though Herzog denies that he had any specific statement on the politics of the Sandinistas. Herzog has said that the film is about child soldiers, and could have been made in any of several countries where child soldiers exist. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.