Educational Media Reviews Online

La Palabra en el Bosque (The Word in the Woods) uses the metaphor of clandestine Christian meetings to explore Salvadoran liberation theology movements of the 70s and 80s in the region of Morazán and how those momentous changes impacted their community. This grass-roots movement, fueled by rampant poverty, government corruption and brutal economic practices, led to organized ground level resistance based in large measure on utopian ideals culled as much from a mishmash of Marxist ideologies as from Christian social practices. This 12-year civil war eventually erupted into violence where, as one participant noted, “Many people paid their dues in blood.” By the time of the peace in 1992, the film claims that some 75,000 Salvadorans had died.

And therein lies the rub: while this film does a good job of letting those involved in the actual resistance reflect on its historic strengths and weaknesses, it fails to really engage what was one of the largest points of contention with respect to liberation theology: was this a Christian movement based in non-violent concepts of justice, community and charity or was this an atheistic Marxist attempt to level the economic playing field, even if that resulted in armed resistance? At the time, some denounced these radical utopians as Communists; traditionalists within the movement still consider themselves representative of Christian values since they were motivated by a real desire to care for the poor and outcast. But that tension is not really addressed with any vigor. At most, the film offers only this salient quote: “When we picked up rifles, we had to leave the Bible behind.”

Secondly, its focus is a tad myopic. That is, it emphasizes local movements without really bringing larger political influences into focus. Thus, while it acknowledges the role of the United States and especially the Reagan administration’s considerable support of the ruling party and its brutal National Guard, the film only mentions in passing the controversial martyr Oscar Romero, Archbishop of San Salvador, whose weekly radio addresses decried the government’s persecution of the poor as well as Catholic clerics in sympathy with communitarian movements.

Having said that, La Palabra en el Bosque offers an accessible and dynamic picture of survivors looking back on a period of intense political involvement in their lives and reflecting on the impact of that at the remove of many years. It ends in a classroom, framing some of this material as a lecture on the topic to a high school class with student responses included. From here, it would be easy to extend that conversation to a middle- or high-school or adult class of one’s own.