Sin nombre

A truly excellent film, and an important one for our time. It has a brutal, awakening reality to it, but only to show the innocence and courage the characters portray. It is a very pure, and new story of survival. Brilliantly shot, with a ver rich, and warm feel, at the same time is brings you to the frightening underworld of the vicious gang organizations in Central America. Academy Award nominated film producers Diego Luna and Gael Bernal obviously saw a diamond with this film and out came a modern day masterpiece. Cant believe i missed it in theaters. For a first film by Cary Fukunaga, it looks as if it's his 10th, showing no flaws, and with a cast of actors that do their characters amazing justice, Sin Nombre is a MUST SEE!

Greetings again from the darkness. Nice to see the initial low rating has climbed after more people have discovered it. It is a riveting film that weaves together two heart-wrenching, gritty stories that would otherwise seem unrelated. It is beautifully and realistically photographed and provides no-frills story telling.

Director Cary Fukonaga throws the viewer into the middle of the brutally violent gang world at the same time he depicts the frightening desperation of Hondurans making their way through an unforgiving Mexico towards an unwelcoming United States. Trust me ... you don't wish to be part of either of these worlds.

The film is at its best when these two worlds collide and Willy/Casper makes a life-changing decision to help a would-be victim. Edgar Flores plays Willy/Casper as the reluctant gang member with a conscience who is just trying to have a life outside the gang. He plays hero to Paulina Gaitan's Sayra, who is on her way to see relatives in New Jersey. Ms. Gaitan reminds of the talented Catalina Sandino Moreno from the excellent "Maria Full of Grace". Willy and Sayra are an odd couple, but seem good for each other, though their destiny seems obvious from the first moment.

Some great footage of the inner workings of an ultra violent, macho world of gangs left me wondering how anyone could escape alive. These are very scary people. I can understand some finding this difficult to watch, but I can't understand how it can be mistaken for anything other than fine film-making.

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

Let's call this film a documentary. Sure, these were actors following a script. But more importantly, it documents a segment of life that few readers in the developed world have any insight into.

For those who avoid graphic violence, I suggest reading the section on this site that describes specifically what it is, and shut your eyes selectively. I did; but still couldn't relax enough to have dinner afterward until I downed several shots of Scotch. I was shaken, my throat constricted, and imbued with a feeling that may be a mild dose of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

But documentaries are like that. And when I read that the writer-director, Cary Joji Fukunaga, had actually lived with his subjects, and risked his life voluntarily, as they do out of routine necessity, I consider the least I can do is vicariously experience this reality. It is a reality that I see every day in the frightened eyes of those stunted young men congregating around "Home Depot" looking for a day's wages.

It reflects a life so mean, so violent, that the lawless Tijuana is a Nirvana compared to their home slums of Honduras and Guatemala. So first they come to Mexico, then ride the trains to the ultimate goal, America. In doing so they run a gauntlet of dangers that could only be conveyed in a dramatization such as this.

Empathy, compassion to all in our society, is a luxury for those born into a world where such emotion is the norm. Even in America's imperfect society, the rule of law predominates and the random violence is still newsworthy. The people in this film, especially the gang members had no such choice. These gangs provide a circle of affection and caring, but it is defined by the contrast between those who are their "homies" and the outsiders, the other gangs, for whom cruelty has no limits.

On a day trip last week to Baja California, we were stopped at a check point configured exactly like the one in the film. A single soldier in bullet proof vest surrounded by sand bags with a 50 caliber machine gun pointed at our car. My friend struck up a conversation with the guard; they both smiled, and we went on our way, to stop at a bakery right before crossing the border and heading to our home in Encinitas.

Similar check points; but for those refugees in "Sin Nombres" huddled in the empty car on the truck, their lives depended on not being seen. If they had been spotted, and then run out of fear, the machine gun would have killed them in a second, by soldiers hardened by the same violence they face.

My day trip to Mexico, while covering same type of territory, could not have been more different. I had my American Express Card and an American Passport, along with a cloak of protection by the norms of an ordered society. Those depicted in the film had none of this. Their lives were determined at the moment of their birth, with choices so limited that their desperate Odyssey to reach what was my birthright was their best available option .

This is an important film. Perhaps it should be edited with the more horrible graphic acts simply alluded to, to make it more accessible to a wider audience in America. While it provides no political prescription, it conveys an accurate picture of the reality of life just below our border.

If there is to be a political plan to addressing our "illegal immigrant" problem, at the least it should be informed by the road taken by those depicted in this powerful film.

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.