Sin Nombre (2009)

I really love having this blog when I come across films like this one. I do not believe it is one that many people have heard of, let alone seen. It was the winner of the New Director's Award at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, and the winner of both the Cinematography and Directing Awards at the Sundance Film Festival. I couldn't agree more that it is deserving of these honors.

This is director, Cary Fukunagra's very first film, and though it is dark, dreary and violent, there is a hope to the film, and its theme is one of redemption.

Honduran teen Sayra is making the perilous journey through Mexico toward the United States with her father who shares her dream of a free life there. They move along the path of the illegal immigrant, fearing border patrol officers and riding on north-bound trains whose cars are topped by people we as Americans have been taught by our society to resent, but suddenly sympathize with when we see them onscreen.

We next meet Casper, a young Mexican gang member who appears to take this membership none too seriously, and finally faces a deciding moment in his life when his girlfriend, (whose importance he has been putting before his gang duties) is killed by his gang's leader. Filled afterwards with a hate for his gang, Casper steps in at the moment in the movie when he finally crosses paths with Sayra, and saves her from a grim fate, consequently ending his brotherhood with the gang by ending the life of their leader.

Afterwards, Casper and Sayra's journeys are forever intertwined and they struggle against the odds to evade the shadows of their past and the obstacles that stand between them and the border.

This movie is realistic in a documentary sort of way, but also fantastically epic in its setting and situations. Many aspects of it were reminiscent to me of Slumdog Millionaire, such as the fairy tale vibe with a modern day setting. Please, though, do not get the wrong impression from me about this film when I say "fairy tale vibe". This is no Disney movie, and is rated R for its violence and sexual situations. I think of fairy tales as being stories that have the meat stripped off the bones until they are solid lessons on our morality. I really love the simplicity of that, and the strength of the archetype characters that remain. This film has that quality, and I highly recommend that you see it for yourself to understand fully what I mean. It is mythic, but also disturbingly true to life. I loved it.

- Dani