Anyone who watches the 2009 film Sin Nombre will probably be surprised to learn that the director is not pulling from biographical experience. A Mexican-American co-production, Sin Nombre focuses on two interconnected narratives. One depicts a family of three attempting to cross the Mexican-American border; the other portrays two young men caught up in gang life, and the consequences of their involvement. The two storylines eventually collide, forcing the characters to face just how committed they are to the paths they’ve chosen. Despite its authentic (and still relevant) portrayal of Tapuchula, Mexico (a municipality on the Guatemalan border where many South American migrants’ efforts to reach the US are suspended indefinitely by immigration officials), writer/director Cary Joji Fukunaga is neither Mexican nor an immigrant. So how did he nail the details of the experience he depicts?
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Well, one answer is a lot of research into dialect, history, and culture. The young director was nervous about the notion of profiting off the struggles of real people, and made a point of engaging in thorough - sometimes life-threatening - investigation and personal experience. But Fukunaga’s success in conveying the visceral feeling of this experience lies in his focus on the desperation and instability that underlines both of his storylines. Be it the immigrants (who try to escape an increasingly violent environment) or the gangsters (who try to carve out a piece of it for themselves), each character acts in response to a hostile world that will kill them the moment they let their guard down. The film speaks to the broad dispossession experienced by those who live in a crumbling infrastructure, struggling for agency in a world that has left them behind. Particular focus is given to the struggle of the characters seeking the American Border: on one side lies the chaos of Tapuchula; on the other side the violent indifference of a nation hostile to immigrants; and in the middle, ordinary people fighting desperately against social forces that reduce them to nameless victims.
Fukunaga and cinematographer Adriano Goldman design their visual language to bring out these themes. In particular, they blend a documentary-esque aesthetic to highlight the broader social implications of the narrative, while switching to subjective coverage in key moments to highlight the individual human experience.
Camera Movement
The vast majority of Sin Nombre is shot handheld. This choice affects the feeling of the movie in a number of ways. More often than not; it alludes to the instability and stakes underlying every moment of action: the slight shake of the camera lets the audience know that danger is never far off. Handheld camerawork also creates a sense of authenticity, as if we are really there, experiencing these events as they occur. Sin Nombre is a remarkable piece of drama and cinema, but it also functions as a tool of social awareness: it exposes viewers to often overlooked experiences, forging compassion and (ideally, particularly for American viewers) resistance to complicity in oppressive social forces. In order for this to work, the story needs to feel real.
Had Fukunaga and Goldman chosen a more stable look (utilizing tripods, dollies, steadicam, etc.), much of the realism would be lost. The script is well written, so chances are the film would still be effective in its own right, but it would feel more like a movie: that kind of stillness/stability reveals these moments as staged. With the irate and spontaneous nature of handheld, we feel as if reality is being captured. It invokes the rhythms of documentary footage, and makes us feel that these problems are afflicting people in real life - which is important, because they are!
This aesthetic choice is utilized beautifully in a scene when a young wannabe gang member is brought to the sect’s hangout for the first time: in a continuous take; the camera wanders through the space, catching its occupants in their status quo. In addition to the cinéma vérité look, handheld is used to portray a sense of intimacy, such as in an early love scene between the gang story’s protagonist, Caspar (played by Edgar Flores) and his doomed love interest Martha (Diana Garcia). The organic movement of the camera matches the vulnerability and affection shared by the characters.
Aside from occasional establishing shots, the film breaks away from the handheld look on two key occasions: after the immigration story’s protagonist (Sayra, played by Paulina Gaitan) mourns her father in a chapel (depicted in one steady mobile shot, performed either on a dolly or Jib arm, as well as a locked off shot observing the characters from a distance, facing the chapel), and when she arrives in America (a sweeping overhead shot that gradually pulls out to reveal the landscape ahead of her). Both of these beats indicate a great change for the character, and the shift in visual style makes us feel this. The stillness in the chapel reflects the time-halting quality of grief, while the steady reveal of America indicates the sprawling nature of the world she has entered.
Lenses and Lighting
Goldman shoots primarily on lenses that reflect the scope of the human eye (35-55mm). This enhances the film’s realism, providing an objective view for the audience – not wide enough to take us outside the experience; not long enough to put us too deeply in a subjective experience. Again, however, Goldman and Fukunaga subvert this choice a few times, cluing the audience into internal changes. When a young gang member kills for the first time, he is photographed on a longer lens, blurring the background, revealing how truly alone he is in this moment (despite being guided by an older friend) – as soon as he kills, there is an irreparable distance between him and everyone else. Similarly, when Caspar learns that Martha has been killed by a fellow gang member (as a direct result of Caspar’s involvement with the gang), he is photographed with a shallow depth of field, indicating the shift in his arc’s trajectory as well as his own isolation.
The quality of light in the film varies. Much of it is natural and harsh, depicting the unpleasant experience of braving the elements and immigrating to a country that will not accept you willingly. Direct practicals are used in night scenes to create contrast, furthering tension. Scenes that are more emotionally warm or intimate are captured with soft indirect light, giving them an appealing feel.
These variances in light are indicative of Fukunaga’s broader approach: he is interested in realism, sometimes to the point of creating a deliberately unpleasant image – but all the while this realism is mitigated by the emotional experiences of his characters, adding stylistic flourishes to invest in their interiority. Like the rest of Sin Nombre’s visual language, Fukunaga approaches his imagery in this way to depict the lives of immigrants, refugees, and people caught in the whirl winds of upending social forces – offering a lens that highlights this phenomenon in broad sociological terms, as well as a view into the individual experiences of people fighting for control over their own lives.
