Nameless

This weekend's Mexican movie that totally rocks is Cary Fukunaga's Sin Nombre, a.k.a. Nameless, a neo-realist powerhouse about a willful Honduran teenager named Sayra (Paulina Galtan) trying to cross the border and make it to the promised land in New Jersey. Complications ensue in the form of tattooed gang bangers from Chiapas who make the kids in The Wire look like wusses, including the soulful Casper (Edgar Flores). In tracking U.S. bound Central American immigrants, Sin Nombre covers the same basic ground as Tin Dirdanal's wrenching doc De Nadie, which I saw at Sundance in 2006 but never got widespread release. (It can be had on DVD here.) Sin Nombre is a great road movie that rides a train that just can't go fast enough, and a deeply human, tragic teen romance. It's playing in both theaters at the Ritz East, and the one I saw it in was half empty, which might mean demand is being overestimated for a movie with scenes of brutal 12 year old gang initiation rites and victims literally being fed to the dogs. I went to see Beirut at the Electric Factory afterwards, and, no offense to Zach Condon, but his charming Euro chansonerie seemed hopelessly inconsequential compared to what I'd just seen on screen. Steven Rea's review is here.