This ripping yarn brings together a small town south Mexican gangbanger on the run with three Hondurans riding the rails across Mexico to the Promised Land of Big Box Malls.
Willy (Edgar Flores), known as El Casper to his gang brothers in Tapachula near the Mexico-Guatemala border, leads a double life. He has no family, and is a low level soldier for the Tapachula chapter of La Mara Salvatrucha, which calls itself the ‘Confetti clique.’ He runs errands for the clique’s profusely illustrated Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) and Lil’ Mago’s deputy, El Sol (Luis Fernando Peña). El Casper also mentors Benito (Kristyan Ferrer), a much younger boy newly initiated into the gang as El Smiley—no connexion with John Le Carré’s venerable spook.
El Casper and El Smiley are supposed to keep an eye on the gang’s turf in a tough part of Tapachula known as La Bombilla, a ramshackle rail yard where many Central Americans await freight trains headed toward El Norte and the Seven Cities of Gold.
When Willy can slip away from gang activities, he visits Martha Marlen (Diana García), a pretty middle class teenage princess with her own pink bedroom far from the ‘hood. Martha Marlen sees only the boy in Willy, apparently unaware that his elaborate body art signifies that he is a member of a notorious international criminal organization and the tattooed tear means that he has killed someone.
Willy is happy to keep things this way. But Martha Marlen is jealous, as pretty middle class teenage princesses can be, curious as the proverbial cat, and after she overhears El Sol tell Willy where the gang is going to meet, she decides to see for herself what Willy is up to with his ‘friends’ when he is not giving his full attention to her…
Meanwhile, Horacio (Gerardo Taracena), a Honduran deported from the United States, is attempting to return illegally to his second wife and three small daughters in northern New Jersey, roughly 3,750 miles overland from his native Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He is travelling with his brother, Orlando (Guillermo Villegas), and his daughter, Sayra (Paulina Gaitán), the only child of his first marriage. Sayra, who lives with her grandmother, is a 16-year-old not particularly happy about being dragged along.
Their more than 500-mile trip from Tegucigalpa to Tapachula ends in a blister-raising overland trek to the Suchiate River where they cross from Guatemala to Mexico, and then make their way to the rail yard in La Bombilla where huddled masses await the next freight train north.
Looking out at the people waiting for the train, the experienced Horacio tells his daughter, ‘Not half of these people are going to make it to the United States. But we will.’
All the pieces are in place.
The story takes off when Fate puts the three Hondurans on a northbound freight train with Lil’ Mago, El Casper, and El Smiley, who plan to rob the yokel immigrants once the train gets moving. Fast-moving events put Willy and Sayra together, pursued in an exciting, countrywide manhunt by tattooed, gun-waving wildmen.
Horacio is right: few will make it to the Rio Grande and Texas.
Writer-director Cary Joji Fukunaga’s close attention to detail makes this movie fascinating to watch, more than just a fast-paced adventure story. It appears to have been shot on location, made with an anthropologist’s eye to detail and a linguist’s ear to the nuances of the richness and diversity of Mexican and Central American Spanish. Adriano Goldman’s excellent cinematography and Marcelo Zarvos’ fine original score support these impressions.
A viewer can see the terrain change from the roof of the train where the migrants ride as the train carries the story north. Fukunaga evidently consulted people with local gang connections, among others, in order to make his portrayals as authentic as possible. One with a good grasp of Spanish might be surprised at how different it can sound among the people of this relatively small region—as does the music.
Only the meaning of title, Sin nombre, ‘without a name’ or ‘nameless’ is uncertain. Each of the characters has a first name, not a family name, but all except for Willy have a family. The title graphic renders the ‘S’ and ‘M’ in the ornate ‘Old English’ style of the Mara Salvatrucha gang tattoo. Boys initiated into the gang get a new gang name which would enhance their identity, though El Casper seems more comfortable with Willy.
The film makes clear that the process of illegal entry into the United States overland from anyplace in Latin America weeds out all but the strongest, most determined and resourceful people. Moreover, it belies the fatuous conceit that a mere ‘wall’ will stop people with the pluck to brave the manifold ordeals of getting to it.
Though the closing shot gives pause as to whether the prospect of a Promised Land of Big Box Malls, of leaf blowers and cooking, cleaning, and caring for effete Americans is really worth risking one’s life and the lives of family and friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment