Sin Nombre is at least the third small film I’ve seen recently about people trying to cross the Mexican-American border, with varying degrees of success (including Biblical-style tale of rivalry and deceit, Sangre de mi sangre, and the more maudlin but still tearjerky La misma luna). It’s a zeitgeisty issue for obvious reasons, and though I don’t know how these films play in Mexico, the fact that they’re often made and funded by Mexicans, in Spanish, but play widely in U.S. art house cinemas speaks to what is in the consciousness of two nations right now.
Unfortunately, the great film in this genre – one that not only humanizes the players but also makes it onto the average American’s radar – is yet to be made; last year’s The Visitor was a great film, but it dealt with a different kind of immigrant experience altogether.
Sin Nombre (Without Name, or, better, Nameless), directed by Cary Fukunaga, is a fairly good effort. It’s not just about immigrants, but also about gangs, moral choices, and other things which shape our identity. It rings of a sort of twisted Cain-and-Abel tale, and has a the kind of violence that shocks to good storytelling effect.
Honduran teenager Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) is reunited with her father, who has a family in New Jersey but has been deported, as he prepares to make the long journey north with her and his brother from Honduras, through Mexico, and over the border into Texas, toward New Jersey. She’s reluctant, but they begin journeying, making it into Mexico and traveling north on top of a train with other immigrants.
Meanwhile, Casper (Edgar Flores) is a member of a violent Mexican gang, to which his devotion is waning. On a trip north to rob immigrants on a train, his path explosively collides with Sayra’s, and they’re thrown together as they flee and dodge certain death. Unfortunately, this is where the tale falls apart. Sayra, who initially seems like a pretty level-headed girl, is too flatly drawn for us to know why she would capriciously run after a dangerous gang member.
Still, Sin Nombre has its merits: the cinematography is breathtaking, with sweeping shots of the Mexican landscape, and the teenage actors, particularly Flores, have long and fruitful careers in front of them. Director Fukunaga manages to slip a lot of beautiful authenticity into the film – towns in which the children throw fruit to immigrants on the passing train, fields and rivers juxtaposed with junkyards and slums.
In the end, Sin Nombre‘s problems are in its story-writing, not its production or execution. One could speculate why – are they trying to appeal to a Hollywood-oriented audience? is there some symbolism that’s not being communicated effectively? – but it’s a promising start, and these characters deserve to have their story told well. Sin Nombre isn’t paradigm-setting work, but it’s a nudge in the right direction.