Reviewed by Alex Cripe
(from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival)

Writer/Director: Cary Fukunaga
Starring: Paulina Gaitan, Karl Braun, Edgar Flores, Dian Garcia

In the summer of 2005, following festival adulation for his short film Victoria para chino, Cary Joji Fukunaga found himself in an unlikely location: on the roof of a freight train heading north toward the United States. The journey that followed would provide the fodder for his feature-film debut, the bleak road-thriller Sin Nombre (literally translated as "Without a Name"), winner of this year's Directing Award at Sundance.

Sin Nombre traces the paths of three adolescents as each tries to survive the back alleys and shadows of an unforgiving Mexico - seeking out whatever tenable bonds they can find. From the outset, Fukunaga's vision is trying. The audience witnesses a young boy, Smiley, brutally initiated into the local arm of the Mara Salvatrucha gang - his face torn between childish joy and bloodied pain. His mentor: Casper, with a vague sense of pride on his face; but something about him betrays his slow drift away from the "band of thousands of brothers." As these two boys set out on an obstacle-ridden path to "manhood," Sayra struggles on the perilous road to America from her slum in Honduras, alongside her estranged father. In moments, it is apparent that the drama of this film will stem not from choices made but rather the lack of any choices the protagonists have to make.

Sin Nombre is the dramatization of the almost preternatural understanding of the price of exchanging one miserable existence in for another, only mildly improved. It is the drama of getting from one place to another in whatever way possible, and quietly so. Fukunaga exquisitely captures this tone, although this may be due as much to the raw, untried talent of much of his cast as it is his aesthetic strengths.

As has been the trend with many films from south of the border, the stories and fates of these three characters become enmeshed in a slightly convoluted way. Casper becomes bound to Sayra (and vice versa) when he murders a Mara leader. Smiley, having witnessed this, is subsequently ordered to track down and dispatch his mentor. Admittedly, there is nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but that does not seem to be the aim of Fukunaga's film. The narrative, while imperfect in many regards, succeeds in producing characters the audience cares about and, perhaps more importantly, characters not overly consumed by the postmodern malaise that seems de rigeur for cinema today.

Sin Nombre signals the arrival of another promising young director who, unlike some of his contemporaries, does not rely on overt, self-conscious approximations of cinema greats to intimate his artistic sincerity. That is not to say, however, that Fukunaga does not borrow a few elements from Alfonso Cuarón and others. The director, comfortable enough in his own skin, cleverly balances a plethora of tropes that provides him the opportunity to sculpt a visually arresting and genuinely emotive piece of cinema that does not force itself on the audience in the way so many first-time filmmakers do.

This is not a film of grand gestures that will overturn all that once was considered great, but then again, this is exactly why Sin Nombre is successful. More so than many of the new crop of directors, Fukunaga manipulates the minutiae of the scene. The performances he pulls from his actors are subdued and, for lack of a better term, "real." All things considered, Fukunaga has crafted a very impressive first film that never allows its shortcomings to overshadow its ultimate aim - which is to showcase its director's formidable abilities. -MPM

Photos by Eniac Martinez, copyright Focus Features.