Director: Cary Fukunaga
Screenplay: Cary Fukunaga
Producers: Amy Kaufman
Starring: Edgar Flores, Paulina Gaitan, Kristian Ferrer, Tenoch Huerta, Luis Fernando Peña
MPAA Rating: R
Running time: 96min.
Once in a while, a first-time director jumps onto the scene with a film that is so assured and so well-made and has such an air of vitality and realism that it’s difficult to believe he hasn’t made a dozen films already. Cary Fukunaga has pretty much done that with Sin Nombre, a favorite at this year’s Sundance Film Festival that’s now in limited theatrical release.
The story is relatively straight-forward. In one thread, teenage Sayra travels with her uncle and estranged father from Guatemala through Mexico toward the United States, where the father has started a new family in New Jersey, riding illicitly along with hundreds of others on the tops of freight trains. In the other, Caspar, a young member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, tries to balance his loyalty to the gang with his love for a girl from the right side of town. The threads inevitably come together, and while it’s not difficult to figure out most everything that happens, suspense is not what keeps you interested in the film and the lives of the people it depicts. The delicate balance of emotional involvement in these individuals and their situations with the unsentimental, unwavering style (not to mention flawless visuals, camera setups, and editing) kept me rapt for the entire film, and I wanted to keep the experience with me all day.
For the most part, Fukunaga tells his story sparely, not adding in very many extraneous details. We learn who people are and what they want by just following them around and overhearing their everyday conversations – Sayra’s uncle convincing her to undertake the dangerous and illegal journey, Caspar recruiting a barely adolescent boy into the Mara. Nothing is out of place in this narrative, and yet it all feels natural. The non-plot-related sequences that Fukunaga does include, such as ones that illustrate the transient community aboard the train and the outposts that serve them, lend a pathos to the world surrounding our characters that’s welcome and real rather than sentimentalized. After getting tired of seeing film after Hollywood film that gives unnecessary backstory, exposition, explanation, and resolution, it’s extremely refreshing to see a film that knows exactly how much to tell and exactly when to stop.
The topic of illegal immigration is omnipresent in the film, as Sayra is trying to cross the border illegally and we are unequivocally intended to root for her to make her way into the United States uncaught. That said, Fukunaga does not get explicitly political – he shows us the lives of particular people whom we grow to care about. Certainly there’s an implicit message there, especially right now as it’s such a political hot topic. I don’t want to get into it – however you feel about the US-Mexican border, Sin Nombre tells its story well, and that’s all I really ask of a film.
I didn`t see this movie but i will watch it.
Just saw this last night, beautiful and heartbreaking and it looked fantastic!
very tempted to check this out.
Also been wanting to see this for some time. Is it wrong to make a trip into town for ANVIL and pass over this?
its not only wrong, its immoral.
Kurt, see both!
After all the love ANVIL has gotten around here, I guess I better put it on my list, too?
Sin Nombre is my favorite film of the year so far – but it’s only April. Still.
Sin Nombre looked great and it definitely sounds like one to watch (I’m looking forward to it – hopefully it opens around these parts) but I’m with Jandy, see both! Anvil! The Story of Anvil is too good to pass up.
The trailer for this looks like total crap, but people keep praising it so I’ll go see it at some point.
Put me down for Anvil over this Kurt.
Ok just back from Sin Nombre, and here are my thoughts.
I can see where you are coming from Jandy in that it is a fairly solid film, particularly if you want to look at it from a craft pov, it looks the way it should, it flows nicely, the characters are given time to breath and the story takes me places I have never been before. BUT. There is this tendency of niche foreign films that get critical attention, and I see it time and time again, that they are fairly conservative with how they tell their stories, and in any other circumstance, i.e. if this were a Hollywood film, the same critics would be sneering at the film for being too formulaic. But there is this license that these kinds of films get by the nature of their exoticism that these usual criticisms are pushed aside. I have seen enough films at this point in my life that I can’t let this go, that its not enough that a film be well crafted and show me places I have never been, I need it also not to fall into the grooves of familiarity with the storytelling, I need it not to be predictable. And SIn Nombre largely is predictable, and even though I do like the characters in the film I don’t like where the script chooses to do with them.
so if I am rating, probably a 3/5 for me.
I agree with you, it is predictable. But it was predictable in ways that felt right. It didn’t feel like it was trying to be unpredictable and failed (which is the feeling I get from most predictable Hollywood films). It’s a simple story, told simply, and I appreciate that no matter where it comes from.
I will say the leads have screen presence, I suspect we will be seeing more of them.