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Sin
Nombre
(2009)
Directed by
Cary Fukunaga
Review by
Zach Saltz
Like Gregory Nava’s
El Norte, Cary Fukunaga’s
Sin Nombre
profiles the
journey of two youths from south of the border as they attempt to
illegally enter the United States.
For a motion picture made and released in an era where illegal
immigration lies at the hotbed of every major political and sociological
debate, the film stays remarkably apolitical – even more so than Nava’s
film, made in 1983.
Instead
of dividing audiences by defending illegal immigration,
Sin Nombre
offers audiences a
great, sprawling, universally compelling story about two lost souls in
search of a new home and escape from their fractured and violent pasts.
The movie begins with two separate stories that
eventually and invariably converge.
The
first story involves a group of hoodlums in
Southern Mexico.
With their ominous tattoos and brazen declarations of
masculinity, they are reminiscent of the blackened Maori hooligans in
Once Were Warriors
(1995).
We are introduced to two of their young members, Willy, nicknamed
El Casper (Edgar Flores), and his 12-year-old protégé, El Smiley (Kristian
Ferrer).
We are at first
not sure what to make of Willy; in an early scene, he greets his
sleeping girlfriend, Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia) by politely asking
for sex, and proceeds to hide her from the rest of the gang.
If his actions seem less than chivalrous we understand later, in
a stunning and brutal encounter between the gang leader and Martha
Marlene, that he keeps her away for her own good.
The other story involves Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a
Honduran who is reunited with her father and uncle as they board a train
full of immigrants headed to the Texas border.
They hope to eventually be reunited with Sayra’s sisters, who
have successfully entered the
United
States
and now reside in New Jersey, but Sayra
is unsure of her father and his crudely-rendered map across the
continent (New Jersey isn’t even on
the map).
They sit atop the
locomotive and watch the scenic surroundings pass them in a flash,
recalling the lush imagery of David Carridine atop a train in
Bound for Glory
(1976) and
the early scenes of
Days of
Heaven (1978).
Willy and Sayra eventually meet atop the train as
she is being forcibly raped by the gang leader, Lil’ Mago.
When Willy saves her and pushes Lil’ Mago off the train, he knows
that the gang will be after him; Smiley, who is questioned by gang
leadership for not killing Willy on the spot, promises his allegiance to
the gang by being willing to hunt Willy down himself.
Sayra, meanwhile, slowly befriends the tattooed brute who saved
her life.
She first offers
him food and conversation when others on the train are too afraid to
approach him, and then boldly declares that she will follow him into
America toward
an unknown destination.
He
reluctantly agrees, unsure why she would follow a wanted man, but makes
her promise that she will ultimately find her way to
New Jersey.
And so begins the real thrust of
Sin Nombre, which is not the
portrayal of exotic gang violence or the politically-charged issue of
illegal immigration, but is rather is subtle and absorbing story about
two desperate and alienated souls who stick their necks out for one
another in their desire to escape from their violent and
poverty-stricken societies.
The film wisely avoids making their journey north a love story – Willy’s
heart is still broken from the death of his beloved Martha Marlene – but
it is clear that the two need each other for survival and rely on each
other for comfort and compassion.
Like Romeo and Juliet and even DiCaprio and Winslet’s characters
from
Titanic, their journey
seems doomed from the start, but their characters are so scarred and yet
so sympathetic to each other that it is nearly impossible to root
against them.
This is not
formula or manipulation on the screenwriter’s part; this is pure,
classical, economical storytelling transplanted on to a moving train
across Mexico.
Sin Nombre
is an extremely ambitious film, and for this, writer-director
Fukunaga must be commended.
The film contains vibrant and exciting action sequences, as when Smiley
and the rest of the gang finally end up crossing paths with Willy and
Sayra at a stop with eager boarder guards in the midst.
The journey to America for these two is essentially one large
turf war, and Fukunaga makes it clear that in Mexico, gang warfare controls the
flow of society at large.
Young Smiley’s intoxication with the brutish lifestyle of the gang
illustrates how easy it is for young boys to be caught up with the
romanticized image of gangs that eventually unfolds into mayhem and
tragedy.
A key decision by
Smiley at the end of the film, coupled with the last shots of the
character, reveal the unfortunate direction that too many Mexican youths
ultimately follow today.
And yet the movie remains rather subdued in its
critique of Mexico, and as an action film, avoids the same jarring,
rapid-style (and overused) styles used in
City of God
and
Amores perros.
This is a subtle, sad motion picture that knows all too well that
its protagonists are not superheroes able to effectively transcend their
porous roots.
It is
classical storytelling with a vivid palette, yes, but with a sudden,
harsh overtone that only becomes apparent with the realization that
Willy and Sayra’s story is universal – that thousands of immigrants with
stories like theirs every day attempt, and most often fail, to get into
the United States
with hopes of a better life.
What a tragedy it is that these people have to make the same
decisions Willy and Sayra must make, and that these decisions often
prove the slim difference between life and death.
Sin Nombre
is one of the very best films of the year.
Rating:
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