Sin Nombre

Vivid drama telling the interlocking tales of teenaged Sayra and gang member Casper, both travelling illegally on the roof of a beat-up train crawling across Mexico to the United States
An exhilarating feature debut from writer-director Cary Fukunaga, Sin Nombre is a pacy film which proves that the Sundance Film Festival - which awarded Fukunaga its 2009 director's prize - is still capable of promoting films inspired by something other than the lives of dysfunctional middle-class indie kids. Sin Nombre is peopled almost exclusively with characters living hand-to-mouth existences, as you might expect from a narrative following the lives of various Central American migrants determined to reach 'el norte' - the United States. They include teenaged Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), her absentee father who has already been deported once before, and troubled gang member Casper (Edgar Flores), fleeing the violence of his native Honduras. They're making this long and dangerous journey not because they naively imagine a promised land of milk and cookies dispensed by beneficent Uncle Sam, but because their circumstances at home have become quite literally untenable. Although the issues motivating the film's characters are economic and therefore political, it should be stated upfront that this is not a single issue movie. Or rather, it's a film interested in the personal stories of a group of people whose lives happen to be dramatically shaped by this particular issue - as such, the politics of immigration provide a backdrop we can interrogate once we leave the cinema if we like, but it's not something that muscles in on screen time. We're engaged with characters at a human level rather than being bludgeoned by polemic. The film's naturalistic style helps keep us aware that, although these stories are crafted fictions, they are also true. Director Fukunaga spent months undertaking authentic, on-the-ground research, riding the trains through Mexico, living and talking with the immigrants making their way north and spending time with gangs and police in Mexico. It's this immersive research that gives the film some of its best-judged detail. Tattooed gang leader Lil Mago (Tenoch Huerta) wanders about the compound of his gang, the Mara Salvatrucha, overseeing horrific violence, even as he shushes a grumpy child in a flannel baby grow on his hip. The domesticity and every-day nature of life in the gangs is presented as clearly as the terrible codes of supposed honour that they live by. Nimbly sidestepping the potential mawkishness of creating such an upfront juxtaposition between home life and violence, Fukunaga successfully exposes the familial appeal of joining the Mara to a character like 12-year-old Smiley (Kristian Ferrer), who must commit murder to prove himself worthy to the superficially charismatic Lil Mago. Sin Nombre's use of untrained actors, sourced via open call casting in Honduras, alongside more experienced professionals, also helps the director in his quest for verisimilitude. Of special note is Edgar Flores as Mara gang member Casper, who reneges on his vow of total obedience to the gang's code. Flores has the pained dignity of a maturing boy who realises he cannot continue in the life he has found himself living, but whose circumstances dictate that he lacks both a coherent alternative plan and the material means to escape. His tentative relationship with fellow migrant Sayra might seem convenient but stops short of seemed contrived, if only because it's hardly a passionate, rose-tinted affair. As a film that focuses on problems of immigrants getting to America in the first place, rather than on the problems they face once there, Sin Nombre must end where its character's physical journey dictates that it should end: at the Texan border. Building the fictional story around this natural end-point is a bit of a gamble: can a naturalistic, documentary-style film get away with building to a clearly pre-ordained climax? To pull off this sleight of hand the script draws on the other half of its DNA, that of the western, starring a hero of the lawless frontiers hunted to a hypnotic final showdown by a posse of wrong 'uns - and it makes for a powerful climax. The greater risk with this type of film is that we are having our cake and eating it, excited by the brutal depiction of gang warfare even as we shake our heads and condemn it. It's a charge that was levelled at City Of God, a film with which Fukunaga's debut is being lazily compared. Sin Nombre avoids this voyeuristic pitfall partly because of its writer-director's sincere compassion for his characters; the violence they encounter never feels gratuitous. A welcome addition, then, to Focus Features' family of films (including Milk, 21 Grams and The Constant Gardener), which draw our attention to a social issue without causing us to nod off in the process.
Verdict Justly attracting rave reviews, Sin Nombre is a spry, humane account of the hardships encountered on the Mexican immigration trail, whose violence never feels exploitative, for all that it may be hard to watch. Highly recommended.