Benito is no different than most other preteen boys, he is insecure, emotional and his main goal is to be accepted by his peers. He looks comically harmless next to the other gang members. His name roughly translates “Little Ben”. And yet by the end of the film Benito is severely beaten twice, survives a gunfight with a rival gang and kills two people, one of whom is unarmed and the other was his former friend. One wonders why Benito would join a group that forces him to do such things. Benito’s transformation into Smiley demonstrates the social forces that compel young people towards gangs. Benito is first portrayed as an adorably meek preteen who desperately needs a role model. He looks up to Casper, another MS13 member, because Casper has a girlfriend and a much higher status in the gang. Casper promises him that he can succeed as well if he continues to follow the gang’s orders. After Benito murders a tied up rival gang member, the gangs leader, Lil Mago, comforts him and reassures him. And throughout the film, MS13 is shown as a family. We understand that Benito is doing horrible things so that he can earn his place in a family.
Sin Nombre brilliantly avoided common conceptions of good and evil. Lil Mago holds a baby while he tells a tied up man that he is going to feed him to his dogs. And when the MS13 members meet to mourn Mago, we see a group of menacing, muscular, tattooed and heavily armed men in tears. The film could have just shown them pounding their chests and looking for revenge after their leader is killed, but instead Fukunaga allows the members to be seen with sympathy. Crucially, during this scene in the background we can hear a strange noise for a gang hideout – a baby’s cries. While the world has been ridded of a sadistic rapist/murderer, we are reminded that another child has lost a father. Films that humanize the Bad Guys often succeed only by obscuring their misdeeds while choosing to focus on their virtues. Sin Nombre never falls for this. Lil Mago’s crimes are shown just as viscerally as any other antagonists’. Sin Nombre doesn’t excuse the gang for the terror that they cause, but it attempts to show that within each of these killers is a young boy like Benito, a scared kid trying to be one of the family.
A common theme throughout the wrenching story of “Sin Nombre” is the presence of beauty even in the darkest of times. Fukunaga chooses to show how beautiful the physical landscape is around the storylines of each character. During Sayra’s time on the train, which is a grueling journey faced with the challenge of gang violence, the uncertainty of her future, and the unfathomable hardships aligned with living between borders, Fukunaga intentionally shows the stunning Central American countryside whizzing by. In doing this, Fukunaga furthers the gap between the natural, peaceful, and enjoyable way of life that the world has to offer, and the unnatural and painful life of Sayra and her relatives. The immigrants are depicted gazing longingly into the distance wanting to be and live in beauty knowing full well that it is out of their reach. Sayra and her family reside in a ten-foot-wide metal border filled with misery. The top of a train is an unnatural place for a human to live and is another thing that dehumanizes and isolates Sarya and her companions from the rest of the world.
Willy, a member of the MS-13 gang who struggles with his morality, is another example that the theme of presence of beauty in the darkest of times reoccurs throughout the film. In one of the final scenes, Willy gets murdered by his former apprentice and friend, Smiley. Willy is riddled with bullet holes and then gets pushed into the river by his former brothers of the MS-13 gang. Willy’s lifeless body floats down the river and his blood seeps into the water around him while in the background the camera pans up to show a magnificent sunset with birds flying overhead. This image shows the audience that even in the darkest of times there is still beauty.
Throughout Sin Nombre, director and visionary Joji Fukunaga brilliantly plays with the border between Childhood and Adulthood, and does so through the children in the film, particularly Smiley/Benito and Sayra. The environments are presented as harsh and unforgiving, even to the kids – this is established right from the beginning, as Smiley is brutally beaten up for his ‘initiation’ into La Mara.
While they focus less on Smiley in the first arc (he is usually seen with Willy/Casper), Fukunaga develops a very strong ‘little brother-big brother’ relationship between the two. Smiley looks up to Casper, and because he is terrified, will do anything to survive. Even if it means joining a gang. Benito is, after all, just a child. He wants to – rather, he needs to do anything he can to survive. This is why, despite the pre-established loyalty and relationship between him and Casper, he chooses to instead take the mission to go after and kill him. He tries to be tough, for the sake of respect, but we see his childhood innocent resurface as he starts crying and begging Sol “Send me, to prove I have respect for the hood”. We see him in front of the kids, later on, as they stare at awe at him with his gun. Somehow, through the presence of this firearm Fukunaga both brings out and suppresses the children’s innocence. These children too, have had their childhood stripped away from them due to harsh conditions.
Additionally, Fukunaga also does an impeccable job of using the camera throughout various scenes to portray the emotions/thoughts of the children. More specifically, he focuses the camera on them during crucial moments/breaking points in their character development. For example, when Smiley has to shoot the rival gang member, or ‘chavala’, we see the hesitation and fear in him, as he knows that if he crosses this line there would be no coming back. Similarly, as Sayra is held down by Lil Mago on the train, we can see the same fear in her eyes, as she too would be forced to cross a line that would forever change her life.
Furthermore, Sayra’s childhood innocence is seen as she chooses to save Willy’s live by ‘crying wolf’ (“la Migra!”). Despite whoever he may have been in the past, and all the horrible things he may have done, she chooses to see him for how he acted by saving her life. While Sayra’s age is never explicitly stated, she couldn’t be more than 15-16. And yet, there is arguably a strong indication through the writing that there is some sort of romantic relationship between her and Willy/Casper. This again goes to show that the border between child and adult is very, very slim, and hard to explicitly state.
Through harsh conditions and traumatic experiences, these children have been robbed of their childhood and shoved into the carriage of adulthood, the same way so many of the migrants shown in the movie have been shoved into train carriages.
The train serves as a fascinating symbol of the ongoing transition of the film. There are changes of location, philosophy, choice, allegiance within and on top of its iron armory. The train serves as the literal backdrop of our introduction to El Casper as he swaggers with Benito to see Martha Marlene, but also to that of Willy who avenges the death of his unknowing girlfriend and saves Sayra from rape through the murder of Lil Mago. The train rarely stops throughout the film, that rarity symbolizing a major change or a growth in the plotline. For example, the audience experiences the shocking overlap of Willy and Sayra’s story at one stop and the blossoming of the intimacy of their friendship at another. The train and its movement also simply symbolize the progression of the story. It takes its audience and actors North towards Horacio’s (Sayra’s father) goal and is unapologetic in the speed or lack thereof of its journey. The same could also be said for the presence of violence throughout the film, which also works unapologetically and forcefully in the lives of its characters. Especially for Willy and Benito turned Smiley–violence, pain, and death nip at the heels of character development and influence the major decisions that shaped the narrative of the story.
Smiley especially falls victim to said factors of brutality, ultimately choosing gang allegiance over pain and isolation. His decision to hunt down Willy, ignoring his past relationship with Willy and leaving behind the hesitancies of childhood, ultimately causes the death of his past friend and mentor within the gang. Smiley’s choice raises many questions, but specifically asks about the significance of one decision. If Smiley hadn’t joined the gang, hadn’t lied for Willy, hadn’t gone back to the gang after Lil Mago’s death, would Willy have lived? The same could be said for Willy, though. If Willy had told Martha about the gang, had Martha lived, would Willy have survived? Would Horacio have survived the claws of the storyline? These questions of the unknown, so real to natural life progression, are worked so beautifully into the plotline of the story. The death of Willy and even of Horacio seem so unfair and so sudden that the audience is almost forced to wonder how the lives of the “Sin Nombre” characters could have worked differently. Ironically, it seems that the only predictable element of the story would be that of train, ever present as a mode of northbound transportation with its ebb and flow cutting through the complex humanity of each moving character “Sin Nombre” passes by.
Lil Mago, holding his child in his arms, walks to open a cage where a rival gang member is tied up and being held hostage. As the man cries, “tengo familia / I have family”, Lil Mago calms down his whimpering baby and speaks to him of safety and protection. This sharp contrast of a man crying for his life and praying for his family alongside of Lil Mago with his child crying as well demonstrates the intensity between gangs but also the individual loyalty within. The border that Lil Mago walks is illuminated as the scene shows his protective and loving self as a parent, alongside the violent and ruthless personality involved with gangs.
The child is dressed in all yellow with his head covered by a onesie. It is the brightest color in the room and adds an element of innocence to the scene. One can assume that it would be almost inevitable to grow up and not be a product of the environment he is surrounded by. The bright yellow displays the playful and youthful energy, and with the heavy and powerful influences of violence, it demonstrates how the child, from a young age has no control over his life and is raised by values of his father.
Smiley is instructed to kill this man, along with his brother Casper. As Smiley aims the gun at the man, Lil Mago lovingly holds his baby close to him. The camera flashes between Lil Mango holding his child, and another child, Smiley killing a man. The scene hyper focuses on message of youth and children’s exposure to the gang. Smiley is seem as a young boy, seemingly without a choice to become part of the gang’s activities. The juxtaposition between a young child with a gun, alongside his brother, as the man on the floor cries for his own family intensely illustrates the pressure from gangs and the loyalty requested that promotes inhumane acts.
As a whole, this scene adds to the complexity of the way the members of the gang interact and display loyalty to one another. Each character’s lifestyle is altered by involvement in the gang. The character’s borders are exposed: Smiley between a young boy and involved in mature and violent activities. The baby growing up between a lifestyle in his father’s footsteps, and the hypothetical other lifestyle he could lead. Willy as the brother who is teaching Smiley, however is in a place of not being fully involved himself as he is in love. Lil Mago as the protective father, and also the ruthless leader of the gang. The character’s split lives are dissected open in this scene; every character is in the phase of transition and borderlands within themselves.
The main message that comes to light is the dichotomy between the inhumane acts of violence and the humane acts of loyalty and love. The humanness behind those who are a part of a gang comes through when they are seen through a familial lens. Without the elements of children, of youth, of lovers, there are parts of the character’s humane personalities that get lost within the brutality and murderousness. The loyalty and protection shown towards each other softens the characters to show the audience that there is honesty and innocence there as well.
Throughout Sin Nombre we watch the development and growth of multiple individuals struggling to survive and succeed. Benito becomes initiated into a gang and develops into an active member through multiple emotionally and physically grueling events. Sayra travels on the train to the United States and undergoes countless traumatic events, such as being held at gunpoint or losing her father and uncle along the way. Even Martha Marlen develops her own independence going against her boyfriend’s desires to go see him, which ultimately leads to her death. But, all of these transformations surround around the development and journey of Casper, or Willy.
Casper individually impacts all of the central characters growth and plays a critical role in their individual border crossings, while he simultaneously crosses his own physical and emotional borders. Casper played a mentoring role to Benito and was a driving factor in his acceptance and initiation into MS13. He simultaneously served as Sayra guide to the border protecting her, caring for her, and eventually dying for her. On a similar note, as predicted by the psychic who told Sayra she would make it to the U.S. not by the virtue of God but that of the devil, she was escorted by an ex-MS 13 member, who greet each other by making horns with their hands. Likewise, Casper brought adversity throughout the journey as he was actively being pursued by his ex-gang.
Casper’s transformation from an active member of one of the most deadly gangs in the world to a selfless individual seeking asylum in the “land of dreams” is demonstrated beautifully through his growing detachment and resentment of his past life and home. A great example of this growth arises when he nonchalantly scrapes off his teardrop tattoo. The causal nature in which Casper scrapes off his tattoo is both grueling and ironic. He reacts as though he were in no pain because the emotional pain that the teardrop represents is far greater than any physical suffering. Furthermore, tattoos are a integral part of MS13 because they last forever and “Mara Salvatrucha es para la vida”. By removing this essentially permanent marking, Casper is leaving his life of stealing, murdering, trafficking behind, and looking forward towards a better life on the other side of the Mexican border. Another example of this emotional distancing occurs when Casper decides to give away his camera in order to save Sayra. Multiple times throughout the film, Casper is pictured watching old videos of he and Martha. This camera seems to be Casper’s outlet from his fear of the gang chasing him and the loneliness he is struggling with on his journey. By using this item of extreme sentimental value to pay for Sayra’s crossing, a random girl he recently met, Casper gets rid of his last attachment to his old life. He throws away the last memory of his home that gave him joy, and instead tries to look towards what he hopes is a bountiful second chance on life.
Augie Schultz
Prof. Cassarino
2/17/19
Sin Nombre Response
Throughout Cary Fukunaga’s film, Sin Nombre, main characters Casper and Smiley are continuously faced with decisions that carry severe implications for their respective statuses in their notoriously brutal gang: MS13. It’s the relationship, and, ultimately, the disparity between the two characters that make this movie profound. In the final scene specifically, in which Casper is shot and killed by his once protege Smiley, the viewer is given a glimpse into the two distinctly different worlds Casper has come to know; one, being a member of MS13, represented by Smiley’s readiness to kill and be killed for status within the gang, and the other, Casper’s life as a fugitive of MS13, represented by his inevitable death and the abundance of shots that follow the initially fatal bullets put in his head and chest.
Sin Nombre is peppered with stereotypical gang-related themes–violence, robbery, rape, and murder–but the different roles of morality in relation to Casper and Smiley adds another layer to the film. Casper’s role as a fugitive of MS13 is a direct result of his decision to kill the gang’s leader, Lil Mago, and an indirect result of Mago’s attempted rape and subsequent murder of his girlfriend, Sayra. Casper’s decision to kill Lil Mago is demonstrative of his shift in morality. This decision also faces the naive pre-teen, Smiley, with the obligation to return to his gang with news of what happened and gives him the drive to take matters in his own hands by seeking out and killing Casper.
Throughout the film, Casper can be seen as an older, more evolved version of Smiley. This interpretation is important because it’s the foundation for the “one-sided mirror” in the final scene. The one-sided mirror is what lies between Casper and Smiley; it’s Casper looking into Smiley’s eyes, seeing himself as a young, naive gang member eager to earn the respect of the rest of the group. Casper’s newfound perception of morality was only discovered as an early 20-year-old–a perception he knows Smiley has no chance of understanding given his age and environment. Smiley, on the other hand, sees a disloyal traitor in front of him. He doesn’t have the maturity or perspective to understand why Casper made the decisions he did, so this murder remains a prideful act for the young boy. As the viewer watches the first bullet go through Casper’s chest, a central idea of Sin Nombre is fortified–it’s nearly impossible to abide by conventional ethical standards and survive as a gang member.
During the scene where Willy and Sayra first enter the car on the tow truck together, they talk about Willy’s life in a raw way that Willy hasn’t felt comfortable with before. He spent a lot of time before the death of his girlfriend arguing with her about how much he cared; he never shared much about his life in the gang. It seems likely that he wanted his time with her to be different, not involved with the killings and other horrors that define being a brother of Mara Salvatrucha. He must have been scared all the time. Now, sitting in the driver’s seat beside Sayra he lets himself be vulnerable. She quite literally buckles herself in for the ride. Her ignorance and acceptance of his imperfect background pulls him closer still. Through this scene, Fukunaga expresses a reoccurring trend in the film and in border crossings—that extreme hardship reveals who someone is. The choice Willy made to kill his boss was one of compassion and so was Sayra’s choice to sacrifice the safer route to help him by calling out a false alarm of border patrol. Crossing lines means starting anew and both Willy and Sayra are ready to leave anything and anyone they had before to make the journey.
Fukunaga also uses this scene to document how trying to cross a border means living between worlds. As Willy watches the videos of his life before on his camera, Sayra looks on with a sad expression. She can’t help him and can barely help herself. The journey they embarked on is like a river that sweeps out their feet and doesn’t stop until they’re beaten and weary. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve won or lost. The river managed to spit Sayra out at the correct destination, but even the excited voice of the woman on the telephone at the end isn’t enough to cheer her up. Everything she knew before is gone. Without a clear future and no one left from her past, she isn’t a clear part of any one place.
A seemingly common theme among many of the aspiring immigrants in the movie “Sin Nombre” is the idea of hope or confidence that they will make it across the border, that they will gain entry into the United States. Seen clearly in the ideologies of Sayra and her family, they ignore the information that up to half of the immigrants alongside them won’t make it and are almost certain that their determination to make it will lead them to salvation, as though this determination is not present in the others.
This continuing theme illustrates the idea that our borders, those which we all face, are often just as emotional as they are physical, concrete. But how does that relate to the true meaning of hope, particularly in a case so bleak and ridden with despair? While Sayra and her family seem to have crossed that mental border, it serves in no way to truly bolster their chance of success, or in the not-so-extreme case of Sayra’s father, survival. Although there is a clear connection between the physical borders we face and the internal confrontation that we associate with them, it doesn’t appear in this case as though one’s mental preparedness really serves any utility in the face of such extraneous circumstance.
In extension, this correlation between mental and physical borders in this exact depiction of illegal immigration could also serve to illustrate the vulnerability of illegal immigrants. They are clearly subject to the events transpiring around them, sticks in the rapids of their own indeterminable fate. Knowing that this hope that some cling to so firmly means so little is key to the understanding of the struggle that is the immigrant life.
Mental state and approach are clearly relevant in the face of certain borders, but their impact clearly falters in the face of others. While a tennis player would stress the importance of staying cool in the face of frustration, an illegal immigrant might not see the purpose. It is this distinction that is important, the true utility of hope in the face of our borders. It is this distinction that director Cary Fukunaga sought to articulate.
The scene that most impacted me was the very last one of the movie. In this scene, Sayra, disheveled and miserable, finally reaches the U.S, and specifically, a telephone box. As she slowly dials her father’s wife’s number, a traditional Zapoteca folk song, “La última palabra” starts to play, and the music and film work together for an emotional climax as the woman on the other side of the line picks up, oblivious to the news of her husband’s demise. As the woman’s friendly voice is heard, excited to hear how the trip went, Sayra’s face is clearly anguished with the news she must relay, and film fades to black.
There are multiple border crossings in “Sin Nombre”, physical and metaphorical. Smiley cross the border into numbness, into gang brutality, that culminates with the killing of Casper. Casper crosses the border back into feeling, into compassion, as throughout the film he is questioning the gang’s violence, culminating when he saves Sayra’s life at the expense of his own. But Sayra’s border crossing into maturity is just as striking. In the beginning of the movie, she is a teenager. She doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions too much (evidenced by when she jumps off the train, leaving her father and uncle, to join Casper, who she barely knows). Even before this, she constantly interacts with Casper, despite her family’s protests that he will put them in danger.
But Sayra is changed by the end of this film. She has lost both her father and Casper, and feels incredibly guilty for both deaths. “La última palabra”, originally a folk song in Zapoteco, is played in its translated Spanish version in this movie. The song is played in Mexico during festivals like Día de los Muertos, when the dead are remembered. The singer laments at the death of his loved one; “¿qué será de mi alma, si al fin voy a vivir lejos de ti?” (What will become of my soul, if in the end I’m going to live far away from you?). Interestingly enough, this line ties into Sayra’s story, as she says earlier in the film, jokingly, that she was told by a psychic that she would cross the border, but by selling her soul to the devil. Yes, she has crossed the border, but at the expense of two lives. The psychic’s words came true, and Sayra’s immense guilt is apparent.
Cary Fukunaga’s use of the song “La Última Palabra”, as well as representing Sayra’s crossing into maturity, also is a song about the crossing of the living into the world of the dead (Casper and Sayra’s father) . The movies fades out with the last line of the song “Pero si por desgracia, mueras o muero yo/ allá en la otra mansión/ante el creador me uniré a ti” (But sadly, if you or I die/there in that mansion/before the Creator we will be united). The song is harrowing, as its timelessness gives the movie the sense that this old cycle of violence will continue as it has before, that more loved ones will be killed (crossing to the other side) and more people will be abandoned on this Earth, until everyone is reunited in death.
This choice in music does not end the film on a hopeful note. Not only have two souls crossed into the land of the dead, but Sayra has changed, from a slightly-naive teenager to a skeleton of her formal self, world-weary and guilt-ridden. She has changed in innumerable ways from all the borders she has crossed, and this music choice works well to illustrate that.
Verdant forest stretches out beyond the horizon. From below, locals sling fruit up the side of the moving train for the migrants to catch. Those seated on the train’s roof rejoice at the offering of nourishment and kindness. A few days later, the train passes through monochrome, industrial buildings, and shrieking schoolchildren pelting rocks instead of fruit. “Sin Nombre,” by director and screenwriter Cary Joji Fukunaga, walks the line of duality, of hope and despair.
This traversing of the void between everything and nothing is instantaneous. In the first take, Willy sits staring at a wall papered over with the image of an vibrant autumn scene. (In his screenplay, Fukunaga writes, “Texas?”) Moments later, he bursts out into the streets of a Mexican slum neighbourhood. The duality of beginning his day with what he longs for and his reality is further emphasized when an elderly woman shouts at him, “You’re fucking going nowhere.” We see this too when some of the characters cling to a train scheduled for the Mexican and Texan border. While they cut through the country, they grip to the promise of the United States and neglect the peaceful even pleasurable moments that Mexico offers. On one occasion, the train stops in a village where food is abundant, there are phones to use, women apply makeup, and migrants are offered a shower. In their desperation, there is also reverie.
“Sin Nombre” also expresses duality through gang violence. Sometimes in a very literal sense as gang members literally have two names. Upon initiation, two of the main characters Willy and Benito are both renamed by the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. Then El Casper and Smiley respectively, they compromise their former identity and become two separate people in one body: teenagers and violent gangsters all at once. By making this choice, they also become nameless as the title of the film suggests. They are both yet neither. Fukunaga employs symbolism as well. El Casper and Smiley walk through the communal base of MS-13. One of the superior gangsters, Lil Mago, holds a baby in a yellow onesie throughout the scene even when he instructs Smiley to make his first kill. Lil Mago kisses the baby’s head in the same moment that Smiley, a child himself, shoots a man in the skull. That the baby is dressed entirely in yellow, the colour of hope but also of deceit, reaffirms the idea that Lil Mago, whose name means “conjurer” or “wizard,” is shaping the future of his country, rearing them to perpetuate gang violence and terror. Meanwhile, he is literally killing off the old country.
Later, a similar suggestion is captured in another striking image. A flower seller of indeterminate gender identity (another sign of duality) traverses the train tracks, selling their products to locals and migrants who hope to catch the train out of Mexico. In one night shot, a train rolls in, silhouetting the flower seller with its headlight. The flower seller is a symbol of the country’s little pleasures and gifts, but also the economizing of them. The train enters as a symbol of hope and escape, and in this image it literally highlights the thing that the migrants are leaving behind.
In the last moment of the film, Sayra, the only character who makes it across the border approaches a payphone. She has experienced things beyond trauma; The journey from her home country Honduras to the United States has taken everything from her. As she dials a number, we clearly see a “Sam’s Club” in the background. The presence of mass consumerism is a stark reminder of the world she is about to enter, one full of superficiality and capital. Fukunaga’s choice of a membership-only retail company was also not unnoticed. Sayra traveled so far, lost so much, only to come to a country that is by membership only. As she was told back in Honduras, Sayra’s trek to America would not be one of God’s but “in the Devil’s hands,” the ultimate form of duality.
Although there are countless topics to discuss within Cary Joji Fukunaga’s provocative Sin Nombre, a particular favorite of mine was his use of the camera as a symbol for Willy’s tenderness, specifically towards Martha. Fukunaga introduces his audience to the intimacy of the camera early into the film in Martha’s bedroom. Presumably right after a heated romantic engagement, Willy records Martha as she poses for him seductively on the bed. In this brief moment, the two of them are happy, unphased by the evils of the outer world that he is a part of. When the camera is on screen, we get to see the real Willy; the man he wants to be with the person he wants to be with. So when Martha shifts the conversation to Willy’s life outside of their relationship, namely his involvement in MS 13, he tenses, reverts to his masculine persona, and the camera disappears from the shot.
The camera makes brief cameos throughout the film, both before and after Martha’s death, but its most beautiful cinematography came towards the end of the second act, while Sayra and Willy were in the car. As the two travelers sit in silence, Sayra starts to watch the videos on the camera, and the sound of Martha’s indiscernible voice is the only dialogue between the characters. Sayra, who was clearly romantically interested in Willy, stares at her “savior” with a pang of guilt and sadness, while Willy simply stares at the road, scratching the teardrop tattoo on his left eye. We have seen Willy emotionally upset earlier, specifically after Lil’ Mago kills Martha, yet this most miniscule act by Willy caught my attention. Scratching off the tattoo has practical purposes; it is his most identifiable physical trait. However, it also serves as a symbol of his emotions as he hears Martha’s voice. Willy cannot cry in front of this young girl that he has chosen to protect; not to mention, Sayra is practically a stranger. So instead, his inner emotions are conveyed by director Fukunaga with the teardrop tattoo itself, all without a single line of dialogue being spoken.
In his final scene, aware of his upcoming demise, Willy sacrifices his camera, his most prized possession, so that Sayra may cross into America. He is not quite saying goodbye to Martha, but trying to tell himself that he will see her soon, and that they will have no use for this camera anymore. Although the audience never sees Willy as a violent individual, his final act of love towards Sayra, a random teenager who he by no means was responsible for, is proof of a redemption for a gang member facing his deathbed.
Cecilia Needham
2/17/19
Sin Nombre Response – Border Crossers Define Border Crossing
Sin Nombre utilizes themes of abandonment and loss, common across biological or gang family interactions, to define the border-crossing narrative. The film gives the geographical meaning of a border little credit, defining the experience almost solely by the people that cross it and their actions and emotions. Families and the complex relationships they come with make up a significant part of the sentiments of abandonment and loss experienced on the border, yet Cary Fukanaga, the director of Sin Nombre, questions what it means to be a “family” by examining more non-typical models like the brotherhood of Mara Salvatrucha. In so doing this, these painful emotions become more generalized to border-crossing as a shared experience.
While consoling her through the death of her father in the church of the migrant shelter, Willy says to Sayra, “We both know loss.” This simple line exemplifies how loss is the great unifier when it comes to the migrant story and border-crossing experience. Heartbreaking examples of loss and abandonment are seen all throughout Sin Nombre, from Sayra’s abandonment by her father as a young girl all the way until the last moments of the movie when Willy is killed literally on the border between Mexico and the United States. In Sin Nombre, even instances of abandonment, loss, and death that do not seem directly related to the act of crossing the border are in fact crucial to said narrative as they create the situations in which individuals feel lead to migrate to the United States. For example, if Lil Mago had not killed Martha Melene, Willy would likely not have murdered Lil Mago and stayed on the states-bound train fleeing the wrath of men he once called brothers. Moreover, he and Sayra would not have interacted or formed any sort of relationship that was then cut short by border-related death, furthering the argument that loss is what defines the border-crossing experience.
In his Sin Nombre, Fukanaga beautifully portrays the tragic reality of gang life and crossing the border into the United States. He challenges the traditional model of family by demonstrating the many similarities between the gang of Mara Salvatrucha and a deported man, his brother, and his estranged daughter trying to emigrate from Honduras to the United States illegally. Loss through death and abandonment are common throughout both groups and define the border-crossing experience as these interactions are both what prompt many to cross borders and come as a result of said crossing.
A young gang member Casper chooses to pay for his and his young friend Sayra’s crossing of the Rio Grande with a camera full of treasured memories with his late girlfriend, and in doing so, he succinctly demonstrates his determination and mental preparation for a new future in the United States with Sayra. The camera held cherished videos of Casper’s dead girlfriend, Martha, and it is these lingering clips of her that serve as source of strength for him throughout the journey. His sacrifice of the camera for safe passage shows that not only is Casper prepared to give up his old life in Mexico and his devotion to Martha but that he is willing to do so in pursuit of a life in the United States and in support of his new friend, Sayra. This certainly was not an light decision, and in the film Casper appears disturbed that he is trading away his camera. But he does so without reluctance, which further reinforces the determination of the migrants to reach safety that is so prevalent throughout the film in almost all its characters.
Furthermore, the notion of giving up one’s most precious possession is representative of both the physical price that many migrants must pay in order to reach a safer land. The camera was likely Casper’s last possession, except for perhaps the clothes on his back, and he trades it away to pay a smuggler to safely ferry them across the Rio Grande. But this is not the first time that either Casper or Sayra has had to provide payment in order to guarantee their well-being or safety on their journey. Sayra, her uncle and her father had to pay their way through the journey, supporting themselves with food, shelter, and water throughout their passage. They were also robbed of their money by gang members at one point in the film. They also spend a lot of physical energy; the film opens with the implication that the family had walked to the Mexican border from Honduras, and Sin Nombres constantly portrays them as exhausted.
However, Casper’s payment to the smuggler also represents emotional sacrifice, and the film clearly exhibits how no migrants escapes unscathed from the trauma of violence and fear. At first, the camera seems a small price to pay to the smuggler for the protection of their lives in the river crossing. However, the camera holds the last memories of his beloved murdered girlfriend, and his trading those away represents an extreme mental sacrifice of one’s past in the name of a new future. Emotional sacrifice like this was a common thread throughout the film; Sayra’s father’s decision to continue their journey without her was one that caused him and his companions great anguish as they had to choose to put their futures above hers. Sayra had to watch Casper’s murder as she crossed the river into the United States. Smiley had to sacrifice his innocence in order to protect himself and ensure his future within the gang. In showing these sacrifices and forcing its characters to give up everything that they hold dear, the film is poignantly alluding to the sacrifice, hardship, and inhumanity that many migrants are subject to in their desire for a better life for themselves and their families.
The scene I’ve chosen to analyze in the context of border crossings takes place early in the film when Benito is forced to kill a former member of a rival gang, referred to as the “chavalos.” This scene does not represent a physical crossing of borders, rather a crossing of a emotional border. Benito, a boy of only 9 or 10 years is already being initiated into MS-13, and this scene represents the final part of this initiation. Benito is lead out to a small fenced in area where a man is tied up and only partially conscience, this man is a former member of the “chavalos.” Benito, assisted by Casper, his mentor throughout his initiation, shoots this man in the head. This murder represents a border crossing for Benito, his innocence and childhood taken. He crosses the border from being Benito to becoming Smiley, his new name as a member of MS-13. This scene is pivotal in understanding Benito’s development, but also contributes to the overall development of the border crossing narrative in Sin Nombre in an abstract sense.
Just as one encounters physical borders, once can cross developmental borders. These crossings influence one’s development and maturation both positively and negatively. Benito’s transition into Smiley is one of such borders, and this crossing marks a significant point in his maturation. Despite being so young Smiley’s murder of the former “chavalo” is a developmental border that marks the end of his innocence and childhood. His growth from this point forward will be dictated by the leaders of MS-13, and Benito’s life will forever be shaped by his choice to join MS-13.
This developmental border crossing serves as an interesting companion to the narrative of physical border crossing also present in the film. As Benito crosses the border into becoming Smiley, Sayra and her family embark on their journey to enter the United States. This border crossing, while physical in nature, is just as crucial to Sayra’s development and maturation. By placing these two narratives on a collision course early in the film allows the viewer to understand the impact of both border crossings and how they affect development in similar and in differing ways. Sayra and her family are attempting to find a better life in America, while Benito is seeking a better life by joining a powerful gang. Their motivations are similar. While Benito’s innocence is stolen in the first few scenes of the film, Sayra’s is taken from her in the final few scenes as she watches Casper, who helped her find her way over the border, get brutally murdered. This border crossing from innocent and sheltered from certain realities of gang violence and murder is shared by both Benito and Sayra, and both perspectives, internal and external, are shown. So even though the crossing of the physical border between the US and Mexico provides the context it is the developmental border crossing and loss of innocence that takes center stage in the film, and opens the viewers eyes to the experience of many undocumented immigrants trying to escape unfortunate and dangerous circumstances at home.
Sin Nombre Response
Benito is no different than most other preteen boys, he is insecure, emotional and his main goal is to be accepted by his peers. He looks comically harmless next to the other gang members. His name roughly translates “Little Ben”. And yet by the end of the film Benito is severely beaten twice, survives a gunfight with a rival gang and kills two people, one of whom is unarmed and the other was his former friend. One wonders why Benito would join a group that forces him to do such things. Benito’s transformation into Smiley demonstrates the social forces that compel young people towards gangs. Benito is first portrayed as an adorably meek preteen who desperately needs a role model. He looks up to Casper, another MS13 member, because Casper has a girlfriend and a much higher status in the gang. Casper promises him that he can succeed as well if he continues to follow the gang’s orders. After Benito murders a tied up rival gang member, the gangs leader, Lil Mago, comforts him and reassures him. And throughout the film, MS13 is shown as a family. We understand that Benito is doing horrible things so that he can earn his place in a family.
Sin Nombre brilliantly avoided common conceptions of good and evil. Lil Mago holds a baby while he tells a tied up man that he is going to feed him to his dogs. And when the MS13 members meet to mourn Mago, we see a group of menacing, muscular, tattooed and heavily armed men in tears. The film could have just shown them pounding their chests and looking for revenge after their leader is killed, but instead Fukunaga allows the members to be seen with sympathy. Crucially, during this scene in the background we can hear a strange noise for a gang hideout – a baby’s cries. While the world has been ridded of a sadistic rapist/murderer, we are reminded that another child has lost a father. Films that humanize the Bad Guys often succeed only by obscuring their misdeeds while choosing to focus on their virtues. Sin Nombre never falls for this. Lil Mago’s crimes are shown just as viscerally as any other antagonists’. Sin Nombre doesn’t excuse the gang for the terror that they cause, but it attempts to show that within each of these killers is a young boy like Benito, a scared kid trying to be one of the family.
Sin Nombre Response
A common theme throughout the wrenching story of “Sin Nombre” is the presence of beauty even in the darkest of times. Fukunaga chooses to show how beautiful the physical landscape is around the storylines of each character. During Sayra’s time on the train, which is a grueling journey faced with the challenge of gang violence, the uncertainty of her future, and the unfathomable hardships aligned with living between borders, Fukunaga intentionally shows the stunning Central American countryside whizzing by. In doing this, Fukunaga furthers the gap between the natural, peaceful, and enjoyable way of life that the world has to offer, and the unnatural and painful life of Sayra and her relatives. The immigrants are depicted gazing longingly into the distance wanting to be and live in beauty knowing full well that it is out of their reach. Sayra and her family reside in a ten-foot-wide metal border filled with misery. The top of a train is an unnatural place for a human to live and is another thing that dehumanizes and isolates Sarya and her companions from the rest of the world.
Willy, a member of the MS-13 gang who struggles with his morality, is another example that the theme of presence of beauty in the darkest of times reoccurs throughout the film. In one of the final scenes, Willy gets murdered by his former apprentice and friend, Smiley. Willy is riddled with bullet holes and then gets pushed into the river by his former brothers of the MS-13 gang. Willy’s lifeless body floats down the river and his blood seeps into the water around him while in the background the camera pans up to show a magnificent sunset with birds flying overhead. This image shows the audience that even in the darkest of times there is still beauty.
Throughout Sin Nombre, director and visionary Joji Fukunaga brilliantly plays with the border between Childhood and Adulthood, and does so through the children in the film, particularly Smiley/Benito and Sayra. The environments are presented as harsh and unforgiving, even to the kids – this is established right from the beginning, as Smiley is brutally beaten up for his ‘initiation’ into La Mara.
While they focus less on Smiley in the first arc (he is usually seen with Willy/Casper), Fukunaga develops a very strong ‘little brother-big brother’ relationship between the two. Smiley looks up to Casper, and because he is terrified, will do anything to survive. Even if it means joining a gang. Benito is, after all, just a child. He wants to – rather, he needs to do anything he can to survive. This is why, despite the pre-established loyalty and relationship between him and Casper, he chooses to instead take the mission to go after and kill him. He tries to be tough, for the sake of respect, but we see his childhood innocent resurface as he starts crying and begging Sol “Send me, to prove I have respect for the hood”. We see him in front of the kids, later on, as they stare at awe at him with his gun. Somehow, through the presence of this firearm Fukunaga both brings out and suppresses the children’s innocence. These children too, have had their childhood stripped away from them due to harsh conditions.
Additionally, Fukunaga also does an impeccable job of using the camera throughout various scenes to portray the emotions/thoughts of the children. More specifically, he focuses the camera on them during crucial moments/breaking points in their character development. For example, when Smiley has to shoot the rival gang member, or ‘chavala’, we see the hesitation and fear in him, as he knows that if he crosses this line there would be no coming back. Similarly, as Sayra is held down by Lil Mago on the train, we can see the same fear in her eyes, as she too would be forced to cross a line that would forever change her life.
Furthermore, Sayra’s childhood innocence is seen as she chooses to save Willy’s live by ‘crying wolf’ (“la Migra!”). Despite whoever he may have been in the past, and all the horrible things he may have done, she chooses to see him for how he acted by saving her life. While Sayra’s age is never explicitly stated, she couldn’t be more than 15-16. And yet, there is arguably a strong indication through the writing that there is some sort of romantic relationship between her and Willy/Casper. This again goes to show that the border between child and adult is very, very slim, and hard to explicitly state.
Through harsh conditions and traumatic experiences, these children have been robbed of their childhood and shoved into the carriage of adulthood, the same way so many of the migrants shown in the movie have been shoved into train carriages.
The train serves as a fascinating symbol of the ongoing transition of the film. There are changes of location, philosophy, choice, allegiance within and on top of its iron armory. The train serves as the literal backdrop of our introduction to El Casper as he swaggers with Benito to see Martha Marlene, but also to that of Willy who avenges the death of his unknowing girlfriend and saves Sayra from rape through the murder of Lil Mago. The train rarely stops throughout the film, that rarity symbolizing a major change or a growth in the plotline. For example, the audience experiences the shocking overlap of Willy and Sayra’s story at one stop and the blossoming of the intimacy of their friendship at another. The train and its movement also simply symbolize the progression of the story. It takes its audience and actors North towards Horacio’s (Sayra’s father) goal and is unapologetic in the speed or lack thereof of its journey. The same could also be said for the presence of violence throughout the film, which also works unapologetically and forcefully in the lives of its characters. Especially for Willy and Benito turned Smiley–violence, pain, and death nip at the heels of character development and influence the major decisions that shaped the narrative of the story.
Smiley especially falls victim to said factors of brutality, ultimately choosing gang allegiance over pain and isolation. His decision to hunt down Willy, ignoring his past relationship with Willy and leaving behind the hesitancies of childhood, ultimately causes the death of his past friend and mentor within the gang. Smiley’s choice raises many questions, but specifically asks about the significance of one decision. If Smiley hadn’t joined the gang, hadn’t lied for Willy, hadn’t gone back to the gang after Lil Mago’s death, would Willy have lived? The same could be said for Willy, though. If Willy had told Martha about the gang, had Martha lived, would Willy have survived? Would Horacio have survived the claws of the storyline? These questions of the unknown, so real to natural life progression, are worked so beautifully into the plotline of the story. The death of Willy and even of Horacio seem so unfair and so sudden that the audience is almost forced to wonder how the lives of the “Sin Nombre” characters could have worked differently. Ironically, it seems that the only predictable element of the story would be that of train, ever present as a mode of northbound transportation with its ebb and flow cutting through the complex humanity of each moving character “Sin Nombre” passes by.
Lil Mago, holding his child in his arms, walks to open a cage where a rival gang member is tied up and being held hostage. As the man cries, “tengo familia / I have family”, Lil Mago calms down his whimpering baby and speaks to him of safety and protection. This sharp contrast of a man crying for his life and praying for his family alongside of Lil Mago with his child crying as well demonstrates the intensity between gangs but also the individual loyalty within. The border that Lil Mago walks is illuminated as the scene shows his protective and loving self as a parent, alongside the violent and ruthless personality involved with gangs.
The child is dressed in all yellow with his head covered by a onesie. It is the brightest color in the room and adds an element of innocence to the scene. One can assume that it would be almost inevitable to grow up and not be a product of the environment he is surrounded by. The bright yellow displays the playful and youthful energy, and with the heavy and powerful influences of violence, it demonstrates how the child, from a young age has no control over his life and is raised by values of his father.
Smiley is instructed to kill this man, along with his brother Casper. As Smiley aims the gun at the man, Lil Mago lovingly holds his baby close to him. The camera flashes between Lil Mango holding his child, and another child, Smiley killing a man. The scene hyper focuses on message of youth and children’s exposure to the gang. Smiley is seem as a young boy, seemingly without a choice to become part of the gang’s activities. The juxtaposition between a young child with a gun, alongside his brother, as the man on the floor cries for his own family intensely illustrates the pressure from gangs and the loyalty requested that promotes inhumane acts.
As a whole, this scene adds to the complexity of the way the members of the gang interact and display loyalty to one another. Each character’s lifestyle is altered by involvement in the gang. The character’s borders are exposed: Smiley between a young boy and involved in mature and violent activities. The baby growing up between a lifestyle in his father’s footsteps, and the hypothetical other lifestyle he could lead. Willy as the brother who is teaching Smiley, however is in a place of not being fully involved himself as he is in love. Lil Mago as the protective father, and also the ruthless leader of the gang. The character’s split lives are dissected open in this scene; every character is in the phase of transition and borderlands within themselves.
The main message that comes to light is the dichotomy between the inhumane acts of violence and the humane acts of loyalty and love. The humanness behind those who are a part of a gang comes through when they are seen through a familial lens. Without the elements of children, of youth, of lovers, there are parts of the character’s humane personalities that get lost within the brutality and murderousness. The loyalty and protection shown towards each other softens the characters to show the audience that there is honesty and innocence there as well.
Throughout Sin Nombre we watch the development and growth of multiple individuals struggling to survive and succeed. Benito becomes initiated into a gang and develops into an active member through multiple emotionally and physically grueling events. Sayra travels on the train to the United States and undergoes countless traumatic events, such as being held at gunpoint or losing her father and uncle along the way. Even Martha Marlen develops her own independence going against her boyfriend’s desires to go see him, which ultimately leads to her death. But, all of these transformations surround around the development and journey of Casper, or Willy.
Casper individually impacts all of the central characters growth and plays a critical role in their individual border crossings, while he simultaneously crosses his own physical and emotional borders. Casper played a mentoring role to Benito and was a driving factor in his acceptance and initiation into MS13. He simultaneously served as Sayra guide to the border protecting her, caring for her, and eventually dying for her. On a similar note, as predicted by the psychic who told Sayra she would make it to the U.S. not by the virtue of God but that of the devil, she was escorted by an ex-MS 13 member, who greet each other by making horns with their hands. Likewise, Casper brought adversity throughout the journey as he was actively being pursued by his ex-gang.
Casper’s transformation from an active member of one of the most deadly gangs in the world to a selfless individual seeking asylum in the “land of dreams” is demonstrated beautifully through his growing detachment and resentment of his past life and home. A great example of this growth arises when he nonchalantly scrapes off his teardrop tattoo. The causal nature in which Casper scrapes off his tattoo is both grueling and ironic. He reacts as though he were in no pain because the emotional pain that the teardrop represents is far greater than any physical suffering. Furthermore, tattoos are a integral part of MS13 because they last forever and “Mara Salvatrucha es para la vida”. By removing this essentially permanent marking, Casper is leaving his life of stealing, murdering, trafficking behind, and looking forward towards a better life on the other side of the Mexican border. Another example of this emotional distancing occurs when Casper decides to give away his camera in order to save Sayra. Multiple times throughout the film, Casper is pictured watching old videos of he and Martha. This camera seems to be Casper’s outlet from his fear of the gang chasing him and the loneliness he is struggling with on his journey. By using this item of extreme sentimental value to pay for Sayra’s crossing, a random girl he recently met, Casper gets rid of his last attachment to his old life. He throws away the last memory of his home that gave him joy, and instead tries to look towards what he hopes is a bountiful second chance on life.
Augie Schultz
Prof. Cassarino
2/17/19
Sin Nombre Response
Throughout Cary Fukunaga’s film, Sin Nombre, main characters Casper and Smiley are continuously faced with decisions that carry severe implications for their respective statuses in their notoriously brutal gang: MS13. It’s the relationship, and, ultimately, the disparity between the two characters that make this movie profound. In the final scene specifically, in which Casper is shot and killed by his once protege Smiley, the viewer is given a glimpse into the two distinctly different worlds Casper has come to know; one, being a member of MS13, represented by Smiley’s readiness to kill and be killed for status within the gang, and the other, Casper’s life as a fugitive of MS13, represented by his inevitable death and the abundance of shots that follow the initially fatal bullets put in his head and chest.
Sin Nombre is peppered with stereotypical gang-related themes–violence, robbery, rape, and murder–but the different roles of morality in relation to Casper and Smiley adds another layer to the film. Casper’s role as a fugitive of MS13 is a direct result of his decision to kill the gang’s leader, Lil Mago, and an indirect result of Mago’s attempted rape and subsequent murder of his girlfriend, Sayra. Casper’s decision to kill Lil Mago is demonstrative of his shift in morality. This decision also faces the naive pre-teen, Smiley, with the obligation to return to his gang with news of what happened and gives him the drive to take matters in his own hands by seeking out and killing Casper.
Throughout the film, Casper can be seen as an older, more evolved version of Smiley. This interpretation is important because it’s the foundation for the “one-sided mirror” in the final scene. The one-sided mirror is what lies between Casper and Smiley; it’s Casper looking into Smiley’s eyes, seeing himself as a young, naive gang member eager to earn the respect of the rest of the group. Casper’s newfound perception of morality was only discovered as an early 20-year-old–a perception he knows Smiley has no chance of understanding given his age and environment. Smiley, on the other hand, sees a disloyal traitor in front of him. He doesn’t have the maturity or perspective to understand why Casper made the decisions he did, so this murder remains a prideful act for the young boy. As the viewer watches the first bullet go through Casper’s chest, a central idea of Sin Nombre is fortified–it’s nearly impossible to abide by conventional ethical standards and survive as a gang member.
During the scene where Willy and Sayra first enter the car on the tow truck together, they talk about Willy’s life in a raw way that Willy hasn’t felt comfortable with before. He spent a lot of time before the death of his girlfriend arguing with her about how much he cared; he never shared much about his life in the gang. It seems likely that he wanted his time with her to be different, not involved with the killings and other horrors that define being a brother of Mara Salvatrucha. He must have been scared all the time. Now, sitting in the driver’s seat beside Sayra he lets himself be vulnerable. She quite literally buckles herself in for the ride. Her ignorance and acceptance of his imperfect background pulls him closer still. Through this scene, Fukunaga expresses a reoccurring trend in the film and in border crossings—that extreme hardship reveals who someone is. The choice Willy made to kill his boss was one of compassion and so was Sayra’s choice to sacrifice the safer route to help him by calling out a false alarm of border patrol. Crossing lines means starting anew and both Willy and Sayra are ready to leave anything and anyone they had before to make the journey.
Fukunaga also uses this scene to document how trying to cross a border means living between worlds. As Willy watches the videos of his life before on his camera, Sayra looks on with a sad expression. She can’t help him and can barely help herself. The journey they embarked on is like a river that sweeps out their feet and doesn’t stop until they’re beaten and weary. It doesn’t matter whether they’ve won or lost. The river managed to spit Sayra out at the correct destination, but even the excited voice of the woman on the telephone at the end isn’t enough to cheer her up. Everything she knew before is gone. Without a clear future and no one left from her past, she isn’t a clear part of any one place.
A seemingly common theme among many of the aspiring immigrants in the movie “Sin Nombre” is the idea of hope or confidence that they will make it across the border, that they will gain entry into the United States. Seen clearly in the ideologies of Sayra and her family, they ignore the information that up to half of the immigrants alongside them won’t make it and are almost certain that their determination to make it will lead them to salvation, as though this determination is not present in the others.
This continuing theme illustrates the idea that our borders, those which we all face, are often just as emotional as they are physical, concrete. But how does that relate to the true meaning of hope, particularly in a case so bleak and ridden with despair? While Sayra and her family seem to have crossed that mental border, it serves in no way to truly bolster their chance of success, or in the not-so-extreme case of Sayra’s father, survival. Although there is a clear connection between the physical borders we face and the internal confrontation that we associate with them, it doesn’t appear in this case as though one’s mental preparedness really serves any utility in the face of such extraneous circumstance.
In extension, this correlation between mental and physical borders in this exact depiction of illegal immigration could also serve to illustrate the vulnerability of illegal immigrants. They are clearly subject to the events transpiring around them, sticks in the rapids of their own indeterminable fate. Knowing that this hope that some cling to so firmly means so little is key to the understanding of the struggle that is the immigrant life.
Mental state and approach are clearly relevant in the face of certain borders, but their impact clearly falters in the face of others. While a tennis player would stress the importance of staying cool in the face of frustration, an illegal immigrant might not see the purpose. It is this distinction that is important, the true utility of hope in the face of our borders. It is this distinction that director Cary Fukunaga sought to articulate.
The scene that most impacted me was the very last one of the movie. In this scene, Sayra, disheveled and miserable, finally reaches the U.S, and specifically, a telephone box. As she slowly dials her father’s wife’s number, a traditional Zapoteca folk song, “La última palabra” starts to play, and the music and film work together for an emotional climax as the woman on the other side of the line picks up, oblivious to the news of her husband’s demise. As the woman’s friendly voice is heard, excited to hear how the trip went, Sayra’s face is clearly anguished with the news she must relay, and film fades to black.
There are multiple border crossings in “Sin Nombre”, physical and metaphorical. Smiley cross the border into numbness, into gang brutality, that culminates with the killing of Casper. Casper crosses the border back into feeling, into compassion, as throughout the film he is questioning the gang’s violence, culminating when he saves Sayra’s life at the expense of his own. But Sayra’s border crossing into maturity is just as striking. In the beginning of the movie, she is a teenager. She doesn’t think about the consequences of her actions too much (evidenced by when she jumps off the train, leaving her father and uncle, to join Casper, who she barely knows). Even before this, she constantly interacts with Casper, despite her family’s protests that he will put them in danger.
But Sayra is changed by the end of this film. She has lost both her father and Casper, and feels incredibly guilty for both deaths. “La última palabra”, originally a folk song in Zapoteco, is played in its translated Spanish version in this movie. The song is played in Mexico during festivals like Día de los Muertos, when the dead are remembered. The singer laments at the death of his loved one; “¿qué será de mi alma, si al fin voy a vivir lejos de ti?” (What will become of my soul, if in the end I’m going to live far away from you?). Interestingly enough, this line ties into Sayra’s story, as she says earlier in the film, jokingly, that she was told by a psychic that she would cross the border, but by selling her soul to the devil. Yes, she has crossed the border, but at the expense of two lives. The psychic’s words came true, and Sayra’s immense guilt is apparent.
Cary Fukunaga’s use of the song “La Última Palabra”, as well as representing Sayra’s crossing into maturity, also is a song about the crossing of the living into the world of the dead (Casper and Sayra’s father) . The movies fades out with the last line of the song “Pero si por desgracia, mueras o muero yo/ allá en la otra mansión/ante el creador me uniré a ti” (But sadly, if you or I die/there in that mansion/before the Creator we will be united). The song is harrowing, as its timelessness gives the movie the sense that this old cycle of violence will continue as it has before, that more loved ones will be killed (crossing to the other side) and more people will be abandoned on this Earth, until everyone is reunited in death.
This choice in music does not end the film on a hopeful note. Not only have two souls crossed into the land of the dead, but Sayra has changed, from a slightly-naive teenager to a skeleton of her formal self, world-weary and guilt-ridden. She has changed in innumerable ways from all the borders she has crossed, and this music choice works well to illustrate that.
Verdant forest stretches out beyond the horizon. From below, locals sling fruit up the side of the moving train for the migrants to catch. Those seated on the train’s roof rejoice at the offering of nourishment and kindness. A few days later, the train passes through monochrome, industrial buildings, and shrieking schoolchildren pelting rocks instead of fruit. “Sin Nombre,” by director and screenwriter Cary Joji Fukunaga, walks the line of duality, of hope and despair.
This traversing of the void between everything and nothing is instantaneous. In the first take, Willy sits staring at a wall papered over with the image of an vibrant autumn scene. (In his screenplay, Fukunaga writes, “Texas?”) Moments later, he bursts out into the streets of a Mexican slum neighbourhood. The duality of beginning his day with what he longs for and his reality is further emphasized when an elderly woman shouts at him, “You’re fucking going nowhere.” We see this too when some of the characters cling to a train scheduled for the Mexican and Texan border. While they cut through the country, they grip to the promise of the United States and neglect the peaceful even pleasurable moments that Mexico offers. On one occasion, the train stops in a village where food is abundant, there are phones to use, women apply makeup, and migrants are offered a shower. In their desperation, there is also reverie.
“Sin Nombre” also expresses duality through gang violence. Sometimes in a very literal sense as gang members literally have two names. Upon initiation, two of the main characters Willy and Benito are both renamed by the Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13. Then El Casper and Smiley respectively, they compromise their former identity and become two separate people in one body: teenagers and violent gangsters all at once. By making this choice, they also become nameless as the title of the film suggests. They are both yet neither. Fukunaga employs symbolism as well. El Casper and Smiley walk through the communal base of MS-13. One of the superior gangsters, Lil Mago, holds a baby in a yellow onesie throughout the scene even when he instructs Smiley to make his first kill. Lil Mago kisses the baby’s head in the same moment that Smiley, a child himself, shoots a man in the skull. That the baby is dressed entirely in yellow, the colour of hope but also of deceit, reaffirms the idea that Lil Mago, whose name means “conjurer” or “wizard,” is shaping the future of his country, rearing them to perpetuate gang violence and terror. Meanwhile, he is literally killing off the old country.
Later, a similar suggestion is captured in another striking image. A flower seller of indeterminate gender identity (another sign of duality) traverses the train tracks, selling their products to locals and migrants who hope to catch the train out of Mexico. In one night shot, a train rolls in, silhouetting the flower seller with its headlight. The flower seller is a symbol of the country’s little pleasures and gifts, but also the economizing of them. The train enters as a symbol of hope and escape, and in this image it literally highlights the thing that the migrants are leaving behind.
In the last moment of the film, Sayra, the only character who makes it across the border approaches a payphone. She has experienced things beyond trauma; The journey from her home country Honduras to the United States has taken everything from her. As she dials a number, we clearly see a “Sam’s Club” in the background. The presence of mass consumerism is a stark reminder of the world she is about to enter, one full of superficiality and capital. Fukunaga’s choice of a membership-only retail company was also not unnoticed. Sayra traveled so far, lost so much, only to come to a country that is by membership only. As she was told back in Honduras, Sayra’s trek to America would not be one of God’s but “in the Devil’s hands,” the ultimate form of duality.
Although there are countless topics to discuss within Cary Joji Fukunaga’s provocative Sin Nombre, a particular favorite of mine was his use of the camera as a symbol for Willy’s tenderness, specifically towards Martha. Fukunaga introduces his audience to the intimacy of the camera early into the film in Martha’s bedroom. Presumably right after a heated romantic engagement, Willy records Martha as she poses for him seductively on the bed. In this brief moment, the two of them are happy, unphased by the evils of the outer world that he is a part of. When the camera is on screen, we get to see the real Willy; the man he wants to be with the person he wants to be with. So when Martha shifts the conversation to Willy’s life outside of their relationship, namely his involvement in MS 13, he tenses, reverts to his masculine persona, and the camera disappears from the shot.
The camera makes brief cameos throughout the film, both before and after Martha’s death, but its most beautiful cinematography came towards the end of the second act, while Sayra and Willy were in the car. As the two travelers sit in silence, Sayra starts to watch the videos on the camera, and the sound of Martha’s indiscernible voice is the only dialogue between the characters. Sayra, who was clearly romantically interested in Willy, stares at her “savior” with a pang of guilt and sadness, while Willy simply stares at the road, scratching the teardrop tattoo on his left eye. We have seen Willy emotionally upset earlier, specifically after Lil’ Mago kills Martha, yet this most miniscule act by Willy caught my attention. Scratching off the tattoo has practical purposes; it is his most identifiable physical trait. However, it also serves as a symbol of his emotions as he hears Martha’s voice. Willy cannot cry in front of this young girl that he has chosen to protect; not to mention, Sayra is practically a stranger. So instead, his inner emotions are conveyed by director Fukunaga with the teardrop tattoo itself, all without a single line of dialogue being spoken.
In his final scene, aware of his upcoming demise, Willy sacrifices his camera, his most prized possession, so that Sayra may cross into America. He is not quite saying goodbye to Martha, but trying to tell himself that he will see her soon, and that they will have no use for this camera anymore. Although the audience never sees Willy as a violent individual, his final act of love towards Sayra, a random teenager who he by no means was responsible for, is proof of a redemption for a gang member facing his deathbed.
Cecilia Needham
2/17/19
Sin Nombre Response – Border Crossers Define Border Crossing
Sin Nombre utilizes themes of abandonment and loss, common across biological or gang family interactions, to define the border-crossing narrative. The film gives the geographical meaning of a border little credit, defining the experience almost solely by the people that cross it and their actions and emotions. Families and the complex relationships they come with make up a significant part of the sentiments of abandonment and loss experienced on the border, yet Cary Fukanaga, the director of Sin Nombre, questions what it means to be a “family” by examining more non-typical models like the brotherhood of Mara Salvatrucha. In so doing this, these painful emotions become more generalized to border-crossing as a shared experience.
While consoling her through the death of her father in the church of the migrant shelter, Willy says to Sayra, “We both know loss.” This simple line exemplifies how loss is the great unifier when it comes to the migrant story and border-crossing experience. Heartbreaking examples of loss and abandonment are seen all throughout Sin Nombre, from Sayra’s abandonment by her father as a young girl all the way until the last moments of the movie when Willy is killed literally on the border between Mexico and the United States. In Sin Nombre, even instances of abandonment, loss, and death that do not seem directly related to the act of crossing the border are in fact crucial to said narrative as they create the situations in which individuals feel lead to migrate to the United States. For example, if Lil Mago had not killed Martha Melene, Willy would likely not have murdered Lil Mago and stayed on the states-bound train fleeing the wrath of men he once called brothers. Moreover, he and Sayra would not have interacted or formed any sort of relationship that was then cut short by border-related death, furthering the argument that loss is what defines the border-crossing experience.
In his Sin Nombre, Fukanaga beautifully portrays the tragic reality of gang life and crossing the border into the United States. He challenges the traditional model of family by demonstrating the many similarities between the gang of Mara Salvatrucha and a deported man, his brother, and his estranged daughter trying to emigrate from Honduras to the United States illegally. Loss through death and abandonment are common throughout both groups and define the border-crossing experience as these interactions are both what prompt many to cross borders and come as a result of said crossing.
A young gang member Casper chooses to pay for his and his young friend Sayra’s crossing of the Rio Grande with a camera full of treasured memories with his late girlfriend, and in doing so, he succinctly demonstrates his determination and mental preparation for a new future in the United States with Sayra. The camera held cherished videos of Casper’s dead girlfriend, Martha, and it is these lingering clips of her that serve as source of strength for him throughout the journey. His sacrifice of the camera for safe passage shows that not only is Casper prepared to give up his old life in Mexico and his devotion to Martha but that he is willing to do so in pursuit of a life in the United States and in support of his new friend, Sayra. This certainly was not an light decision, and in the film Casper appears disturbed that he is trading away his camera. But he does so without reluctance, which further reinforces the determination of the migrants to reach safety that is so prevalent throughout the film in almost all its characters.
Furthermore, the notion of giving up one’s most precious possession is representative of both the physical price that many migrants must pay in order to reach a safer land. The camera was likely Casper’s last possession, except for perhaps the clothes on his back, and he trades it away to pay a smuggler to safely ferry them across the Rio Grande. But this is not the first time that either Casper or Sayra has had to provide payment in order to guarantee their well-being or safety on their journey. Sayra, her uncle and her father had to pay their way through the journey, supporting themselves with food, shelter, and water throughout their passage. They were also robbed of their money by gang members at one point in the film. They also spend a lot of physical energy; the film opens with the implication that the family had walked to the Mexican border from Honduras, and Sin Nombres constantly portrays them as exhausted.
However, Casper’s payment to the smuggler also represents emotional sacrifice, and the film clearly exhibits how no migrants escapes unscathed from the trauma of violence and fear. At first, the camera seems a small price to pay to the smuggler for the protection of their lives in the river crossing. However, the camera holds the last memories of his beloved murdered girlfriend, and his trading those away represents an extreme mental sacrifice of one’s past in the name of a new future. Emotional sacrifice like this was a common thread throughout the film; Sayra’s father’s decision to continue their journey without her was one that caused him and his companions great anguish as they had to choose to put their futures above hers. Sayra had to watch Casper’s murder as she crossed the river into the United States. Smiley had to sacrifice his innocence in order to protect himself and ensure his future within the gang. In showing these sacrifices and forcing its characters to give up everything that they hold dear, the film is poignantly alluding to the sacrifice, hardship, and inhumanity that many migrants are subject to in their desire for a better life for themselves and their families.
The scene I’ve chosen to analyze in the context of border crossings takes place early in the film when Benito is forced to kill a former member of a rival gang, referred to as the “chavalos.” This scene does not represent a physical crossing of borders, rather a crossing of a emotional border. Benito, a boy of only 9 or 10 years is already being initiated into MS-13, and this scene represents the final part of this initiation. Benito is lead out to a small fenced in area where a man is tied up and only partially conscience, this man is a former member of the “chavalos.” Benito, assisted by Casper, his mentor throughout his initiation, shoots this man in the head. This murder represents a border crossing for Benito, his innocence and childhood taken. He crosses the border from being Benito to becoming Smiley, his new name as a member of MS-13. This scene is pivotal in understanding Benito’s development, but also contributes to the overall development of the border crossing narrative in Sin Nombre in an abstract sense.
Just as one encounters physical borders, once can cross developmental borders. These crossings influence one’s development and maturation both positively and negatively. Benito’s transition into Smiley is one of such borders, and this crossing marks a significant point in his maturation. Despite being so young Smiley’s murder of the former “chavalo” is a developmental border that marks the end of his innocence and childhood. His growth from this point forward will be dictated by the leaders of MS-13, and Benito’s life will forever be shaped by his choice to join MS-13.
This developmental border crossing serves as an interesting companion to the narrative of physical border crossing also present in the film. As Benito crosses the border into becoming Smiley, Sayra and her family embark on their journey to enter the United States. This border crossing, while physical in nature, is just as crucial to Sayra’s development and maturation. By placing these two narratives on a collision course early in the film allows the viewer to understand the impact of both border crossings and how they affect development in similar and in differing ways. Sayra and her family are attempting to find a better life in America, while Benito is seeking a better life by joining a powerful gang. Their motivations are similar. While Benito’s innocence is stolen in the first few scenes of the film, Sayra’s is taken from her in the final few scenes as she watches Casper, who helped her find her way over the border, get brutally murdered. This border crossing from innocent and sheltered from certain realities of gang violence and murder is shared by both Benito and Sayra, and both perspectives, internal and external, are shown. So even though the crossing of the physical border between the US and Mexico provides the context it is the developmental border crossing and loss of innocence that takes center stage in the film, and opens the viewers eyes to the experience of many undocumented immigrants trying to escape unfortunate and dangerous circumstances at home.