Jim Erickson’s Movie Review: Sin Nombre

Three noncommercial movie showings between now and next Wednesday, and typically, two of them are simultaneous, at 7 tonight, one of the movies you really need to see on the big screen, 2001: A Space Odyssey shows in the Orpheum. Half an hour later, at 7:30, the Tallgrass Third Thursday of the Month series will show a Finnish movie, Mother of Mine, a nominee for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, the story of a 9-year-old Finnish boy who is sent to Sweden to live out the second World War and then back to Finland after the war is over, making him try to adjust to two wrenchings from the only homes he knew. That’s tonight, 7 in the Orpheum for 2001, and 7:30 for Mother of Mine in the Warren East Theatre way out on east 13th. And the third noncommercial is of course, the next movie t the Blank Page gallery, 917 West Douglas, Tuesday at 7:30; it’s 1973’s Badlands, Terence Malick’s fictionalized version of the travelling killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Carol Fugate that will remind you of Bonnie and Clyde, though the movie is very different.
And commercially, we have a movie that shares the travelling theme of Badlands and the travelling and loss-of-family themes of Mother of Mine; it’s called Sin Nombre, which translates as “nameless” in its native Spanish; it’s subtitled in English. It’s about a pair of youngsters who travel from their native Honduras, northward across Mexico to get to the United States and, they hope, a better life. Both boy and girl lose their families because of the actions of some exceptionally vicious gang members I will simply call Central American because I’m not sure what all the countries of origin are; eventually the pair are pretty much alone, and there may be a love story here or not, depending on what you require of a love story. Whatever the relations are, they are expressed in actions rather than words, so the interpretations are up to you.
Travel is mostly by train, and not by coach or first class or even boxcar, which might almost seem luxurious to the load of immigrants that swarm all over the roofs of the cars, jumping on and off while the trains are moving, with hazards neither overused not overlooked.
There is no effort to explain why anyone would want to join such savage societies as the gangs represent; presumably it is a matter of physical survival, though that is not guaranteed, and psychological survival seems all but impossible. But the gangs virtually rule the railroads that are the only way to cross Mexico, and at times our protagonists are pursued by police, gangs, family, and even mere bystanders, at least to the extent that nobody dares to associated with them. There is plenty of suspense, and each new situation develops the relationship between hero and heroine as well as the characters themselves, especially the girl, who may be the simpler of the two but is not required to suppress every feeling.
Sin Nombre is not a deep study of anybody and is limited to a tiny subset society, immigrants and gangs; it is not a comment on the current immigration problem. But it is superior chase thriller in an unusual setting, strong on credibility, with excellent casting and acting and beautiful photography where appropriate. Those who are put off by reading subtitles will be depriving themselves.