Bad boys are irresistibly attractive to good girls. Let me rephrase that: Bad boys with heart are irresistibly sexy, and what we have in the Sundance-debuting indie film, Sin Nombre (translation: "without a name"), Cary Fukunaga's first feature-length film, is a romantic portrait of the redemptive bad boy, Willy - aka El Casper (played by Edgar Flores) - a member of the fearsome and ruthlessly brutal Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang.
I call it "romantic" because (Spoiler alert!) tragic ending aside, the film goes to great lengths to make Willy a truly sympathetic character, a lone rebel in a sea of dark and sociopathic violence. It is most insistent that we humanize this outsider. Our first shot of our tragic hero is as a sensitive and mostly tattoo-free cute face (with a solitary tear tattoo underneath his eye) gazing at a wall-sized picture of an autumn landscape. He is introspective and observes his world around him with a keen and concerned eye. He brings his girlfriend flowers and cries over her death at the hands of gang leader, Lil Mago (Tenoch Herta).
Contrast this image with Lil Mago, the tattooed-faced rapist-killer who has no illusions or romance except for absolute power and who has no qualms in initiating 12-year-old boys by training them to murder gang rivals and offering up the remains of the victims to his dogs. All while cradling a baby in his arms. This image is itself romantic. Lil Mago, with his baby in his arms, invokes the dual nature of the patriarch as destroyer and creator, and his tattoo-covered body is reminiscent of both the contemporary menace of gang life in Central America and the ancient memory of an Aztec or Mayan warrior.
Against this backdrop, Fukunaga parallels another story involving Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), a young Honduran who accompanies her father and uncle on a treacherous journey "El Norte" via freight trains. Sayra's father, who had been deported from America, attempts reentry and reunion with the American family he left behind in New Jersey. Needless to say, fate will join Sayra and Willy in their quest for freedom from poverty and violence.
While terrorizing the illegal immigrants atop the freight trains, Willy does the unexpected as he saves Sayra from rape. In one fell swoop, Willy is now a fugitive, on the run from the MS-13 brotherhood, and joins Sayra and her family on their journey to the U.S./Mexico border. Such a complicated narrative is told through sweeping shots of the Mexican landscape and telling dialogue that contemplates the nature of immigrant life in the wake of NAFTA and globalization. In more than one shot, we are shown references to the free flow of goods across borders (be they on freight trains or trucks) and the not-so-free flow of human beings (who are constantly hiding within these goods to cross borders). In one conversation, Willy and Sayra look up at the sky to see an airplane. Neither has ever flown in one, yet Willy tells Sayra he's seen the factory near the border where such planes are assembled (referring to the dozens of maquiladoras where much of our technology is produced). There are moments of beauty, such as the young indigenous Mexican children who toss up oranges to the immigrants on the trains - occurring right after they have passed the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe atop a mountain - and moments of ugliness, such as other kinds of children who throw stones at them, or the gun battles between gang rivals, and the constant border patrol.
Through it all, Sayra remains faithful to Willy, her newfound hero, even abandoning her father and uncle to follow him. (My movie buddies thought this was absolutely ridiculous, but I said, "Nah. 1)he's cute; 2) he saved her from being raped - when neither her father or uncle could; and 3)he's a bad boy who seems redeemable.") Needless to say, since she is our virtuous heroine, she will triumph over all, and it becomes obvious that Willy will sacrifice himself for her salvation. These selfless acts offer a provocative narrative about competing masculinities, for in many instances, Willy is a rebel - not just in his outlaw status as an MS-13 gang member but also in his refusal to follow the rules of the brotherhood. This is not just a competition between machismo, based on macho violence, and respectable masculinity, in which he tempers the brutality with the heart. It is also a standard script of the only two forms of masculinity men have to follow: to either be a Protector or a Rapist. In choosing the former, Willy becomes the ultimate redemptive sinner.
In these ways, this "Underground Railroad" story offers nothing new in shedding light on these portrayals. However, it is a worthwhile and quietly contemplative film that attempts to give voice to many subalterns.
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