Sin nombre

I previously said the two best movies of 2009 thus far are "Sunshine Cleaning" and "State of Play". But this newest entry, "Sin Nombre", makes me move this one into the top spot, easily. It is a meaningful contemporary statement made by a writer/director newcomer with guts.

The story(ies) begin in Honduras, a bit later on in Mexico. We first meet Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), who is to accompany her father from Honduras to America – their sights are set on New Jersey. Sayra has not seen her father in a long time, so theirs is an uneasy alliance. He shows her a crudely drawn map, and he traces their route; theirs is a long journey.

We next meet Casper (aka Willy – played by Edgar Flores), a member of a Mexican gang from whom he is hiding his girlfriend; he lies to the gang leader about his whereabouts, but this fearsome leader has his suspicions. We also meet Smiley (Kristian Ferrer) who has just been initiated into the gang. Both Casper and Smiley are put to an additional test to prove their loyalty. They are now thoroughly enmeshed in a world of violence and considerable darkness. This is an edgy world, one in which the overwhelming sensation is constant threat.

Eventually the two separate threads become entwined – both Casper and Smiley have headed north on a train headed north through Mexico, and Sayra and her father have climbed aboard the same train. How all these characters meet and how their itineraries merge is the heart of the narrative.

The shots of train yards and of the illegal train passengers enroute – sitting on top of cars mostly - are very engaging and have a authentic look. The cinematography in the movie is terrific. There are great shots of border crossings and always the trains. According to director Cary Fukunaga the train scenes were difficult to shoot (http://www.popmatters.com):

"We had to maximize those few days we could actually shoot on a train to make it all real," Fukunaga says. "We ended up building a prop train on flatbed trailers, pulling them on country roads around Mexico. You use extras on the set to block the horizon line. If they're in the way, you can't see how far the train goes off into the distance. Definitely something they don't teach you in film school."

All really good movies have a surprise, and there is one here that made me lean forward as if I could see a little better; it was a case of - Did I just see what I think I saw? And that reminds me that this was the first picture in a long time where people walked out fairly early on. That always makes me wonder what a movie about gangsters would have attracted them in the first place.

I am reminded of "City of God" and "Amores Perros", two films that also portray the darker sides of Central America. For anyone needing a fix of smart storytelling with social commentary woven throughout should seek this one out. This is my favorite kind of movie, one where the director leads you through a shadowy other-world full of realistic characters and situations.

Four stars.

In Sin Nombre, first-time writer-director 31-year-old Cary Joji Fukanaga has crafted a uniquely moving film experience that dramatizes with authenticity the drive among the poor in Latin America to pull up roots and seek a better life in the U.S. Transcending genres and styles, Sin Nombre, translated "without a name", is performed by mostly non-professional local actors whose weathered faces mirror the harsh realities of their life. The film is shot by cinematographer Adriano Goldman with 35mm film rather than digital-video which is today's norm and avoids stylistic clichés such as hand-held cameras and dizzier-than-thou fast cutting.

Opening in Tapachula in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico with a saturated color palette of deep red and orange, the trajectory of this low-budget, but beautifully shot thriller follows two parallel threads that meet in the middle. It begins with the initiation of a new member into the Mara Salvatrucha gang, in this case, a twelve year old boy called Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer) who has been recruited into the gang by young Willy aka Casper (Edgar Flores). Smiley must endure a gang ritual where he is thrown to the ground and kicked and beaten thirteen times to prove his toughness. As if that is not enough, the pre-teen is then forced to shoot a prisoner from the Chavalas, a rival gang.

Breaking the rules, Willy takes Smiley with him to meet his secret girlfriend Martha Marlene (Diana Garcia) but the clandestine meeting ends when sadistic gang leader, Lil' Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejia) finds out about it and tries to rape her with tragic consequences. In the second thread, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a Honduran teenager is reunited with her father and decides to join him and her uncle on a perilous journey to New Jersey to meet other family members. In a powerful scene, they join other immigrants at a train crossing and then climb to the top of the railroad car of a passing train to begin the journey. One of the many dangers they face is that of being robbed by gangs or other poor Latinos who think they must have huge sums of money.

In this case, the robbers are Casper and Smiley who have been ordered to join Lil' Mago. When the leader tries to rape Sayra, however, Casper takes action which ensures that his future and that of Sayra will be inextricably linked. To reach the U.S., Sayra and Willy, now drawn together out of mutual need and attraction, have to overcome the network of covert operatives employed by the Mara gang, the danger of the border patrols, and the ordinary Mexicans who throw rocks at them and put their journey in peril. Powerful performances by Gaitan and Flores create an electric chemistry that wraps our hearts around their struggle to find release from their troubled past.

Winner of awards for directing and cinematography at Sundance, Sin Nombre has been attacked by some critics because it is a story about the truth of poor people's lives wrapped in a conventional framework. In my view, that is precisely what gives the film its strength. It is not an easy task for any immigrant who wants to make it to America, and Sin Nombre alerts us to the dangers as well as the opportunities. It succeeds not only as education but as theater, allowing the viewer not only to understand the perils illegal immigrants face but to relate emotionally to them as human beings.

Fukanaga was not a criminal or an immigrant but knows full well that the common thread existing among all people is that of being able to dream of a new day for themselves and the people they love. He spent two years doing research among the Mara Salvatrucha gang based in Mexico and Los Angeles, and in riding on the top of freight cars with Honduran and Salvadorean immigrants headed towards the U.S. border. The result is both deeply moving in its poetry and off-putting in its violence, a film of heartbreaking sadness but also one of joy and redemption, one of the best so far of 2009.

This movie rocked. I would definitely recommend seeing it, especially on the big screen: the cinematography is incredible. The film manages to teach you something about the world, expose you to an underworld you (well, at least I) had no idea existed, bring up some important social issues, all while keeping you on the edge of your seat. Some highlights included stunts on trains, some crazy home-made guns, and amazing tattoos. The acting was also very good -- especially considering several of the cast had no real acting experience. The audience I saw it with loved it -- it got some great gasps and even some big laughs. And all by a first-time director. Well done.

Directed by the young talent Cary Fukunaga, a winner of the Sundance Film Festival Directing award, the film focuses on a combination of issues in South America, from involvement of kids and teenagers in Mexican gangs to what it takes for those who decide to leave South and Central America and seek greener pastures in the U.S.

The story follows two main characters, Casper and Sayra, played by lesser-known actors Edgar Flores and Paulina Gaitan. While Casper is the member of the feared gang Mara Salvatrucha, his faith connects him with Sayra, a Honduran emigrant that travels with her father and uncle together with the other emigrants on a freight train to the U.S.

On this journey together, as Casper tries to escape his faith and Sayra to meet hers, the main characters are slowly blending together, complete each other through their diversity, while they have to face the rough side of life in today's Mexico.

As a result, the film has a gripping, disturbing, moving sour-sweet blend to it, and is exactly the type of the film where it's unpredictability, natural change of pace, and lots of eye candy in the scenery, makes you part of the story until the credits role, making you beg for more inside.

Fukunaga's film feels so real not only thanks to his time spent in Mexico and his first hand experience with both, emigrants and immigrants he met before and while shooting the film, his cast of actual members of the Mara gang, perfect editing and combination of locations and the effort he took while filming to get the best out of his actors ("apart from beating them", he joked at Vary), makes the film one of the best feature debuts I've ever seen.

Instead of sensationalism for its own sake, director Fukunaga relates a gripping story straight, a clear narrative outlining the mental and physical journey taken by a young man recruited into a violent Latino gang and used by them to gather protection money to beef up the gang coffers; the young man makes choices that create difficulties his path one of both fear and self-awakening, and a parallel story of immigrants attempting to crash the U.S. border lines him up with a young woman of integrity. As noted by so many critics and reviewers, this is an often violent film, but how else to picture what we know has often made many border towns between the United States and Mexico unlivable? This is an important picture, a sincere and moving effort which captures a world most of us only read about