Rich details make the immigration thriller “Sin Nombre” vivid and haunting. These minor objects — a worn photograph, a creased map, the permanent claims of gang tattoos on young men — hint at writer-director Cary Fukunaga’s talent for capturing the human ache in the everyday. Pain and hope are in the details.
Still, it’s Fukunaga’s dogged commitment to a story of exile, deliberate and unplanned, that suggest the arrival of a savvy and empathetic storyteller.
Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) lives in Honduras. Her father returns there from the U.S. in order to bring his daughter and his younger brother to the home he’s made in New Jersey. He’s been gone a long time.
He carries a photo of his new wife and their children, whom Sayra has never met. From the looks Sayra gives her father, his absence is not yet forgiven.
In the Mexican state of Chiapas, a different family drama unfolds. Casper, a young, tattooed man, recruits 12-year-old Smiley (Kristyan Ferrer). Although Smiley’s grandmother has other ideas, the curly- topped youngster is about to be inducted into the local Mara gang.
Like all psychologically manipulative gangs, the Mara promotes itself as a family. Boss Lil’ Mago (Tenoch Huerta Mejía) sweetly cradles an infant clad in a yellow hoodie in his arms as he instructs Smiley on a brutal initiation rite. The boy had already endured one.
With his light complexion and pelt of thick hair, newcomer Edgar Flores is tremendously watchable as Casper. Like any young man trying to forge a love life separate from the demands of his family, he wants to keep girlfriend Martha Marlene to himself. Like the most intrusive of families, the Mara and Lil’ Mago thwart him.
When his two worlds collide, Casper’s life and his place in the gang are upended.
We know that Casper and Sayra will meet. The parallel setup insists upon it. But Fukunaga makes that meeting of strangers atop a freight train bound for the U.S. an opportunity for redemption, disaster or both.
“Sin Nombre” means without a name. Yet, this debut feature gives us characters whose plights are unforgettable.
Shot in rich tones by Adriano Goldman, the movie disturbs with violence and beguiles with glimpses of the Mexican countryside captured from the tops of the freight cars. True to its sense of place, the film is in Spanish with English subtitles.
“Sin Nombre” is as compassionate as it is beautifully wrought. It reminds us that there is something universal in the suspicious treatment that immigrants receive.
Central Americans crossing rivers, making their way through brush, hopping trains, have reason to be fearful. Mexico’s citizens don’t always embrace them. During one part of the journey, kids throw lemons up to the riders. In another, they hurl stones and epithets. There are bandits.
The story also articulates convincingly what an act of will the journey to the unknown or only imagined can be.
Before they embark, Sayra’s father (Gerardo Taracena) shows her a map of their route. It goes only so far as the line between Mexico and Texas.
“Where’s New Jersey?” she asks.
Their destination lies far beyond the borders of the map.
Film critic Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567 or lkennedy@denverpost.com. Also on blogs.denverpostcom/madmoviegoer
“Sin Nombre”
R for violence, language and some sexual content. 1 hour, 26 minutes. Written and directed by Cary Fukunaga; photography by Adriano Goldman; starring Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores, Kristyan Ferrer, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Diana García, Luis Fernando Peña and Hector Jimenez. Opens today at the Esquire Theater.
