What separates Sin Nombre from other films is the same quality that prevents the film from becoming great: the use of symbolism. The film is replete with metaphors. Twin storylines which become intertwined when Hondurans attempting to illegally immigrate to the United States become entangled with members of a Mexican crime family.
The refugees travel by train through Mexico, surreptiously dodging deportation by the border police as they move northwards. Some Mexicans welcome them and provide assistance, tossing fruits to the migrants; others curse them and throw stones. A family – a father, his brother, and his daughter – strive to reunite with family in New Jersey and as it is with real life, not everyone reaches their goal.
Religious icons illustrate the story of the two members of the Mara Salvatrucha as they follow parallel paths to Heaven and Hell. Casper has become disillusioned with his illegal lifestyle and chooses to leave the gang and leave the county. Smiley is a youth who wishes to become initiated into the gang and is willing to kill Casper to prove it.
Although they may be involved in regular gun fights and seek to kill their rivals, the Mara adorn themselves with tattoos of crosses and rosary beads. Likewise, the passengers on the train pray that they will reach their destination.
Smiley begins the film living with his grandmother who curses Casper and the rest of the gang and can only receive his M.S. tattoo by catching his former “homie” and killing him. Casper has recorded images from his life on a digital camera, which he has kept to himself and reviews occasionally. He must give it up to pay for his river crossing into Texas.
After killing the boss and leaving the gang, Casper catches a train with the Honduran family. He meets Sayra and tells her about an airplane plant he saw when he once organized a human smuggling expedition and how he wanted to climb the giant globe in front of the factory. When she survives and crosses the border, I thought that she should have tried to find the globe and climb it for Casper, since the film is largely based on symbolism. She calls her family instead, recalling an earlier scene where her father forces her to memorize the telephone number. But in a sense, Casper didn’t complete his journey to reconciliation because literally falls a few feet short of his goal.
Tension is successfully by putting the characters in jeopardy via a variety of situations throughout the film. The actors do their job but none of the portrayals are spectacular. Like Gomorrah, Sin Nombre shows how crime has become insidious across the globe and how many indigent people see felonies as the escape from poverty. ****