Sin Nombre
- Thread starter aridan3at
- Start date
What's also promising is that this movie was the Writer/directors, Cary Joji Fukunaga (half-Japanese half-Swedish), film debut. It's pretty crazy to think such well done film in every category was in fact someones debut film. I expect to see more quality work from Cary Joji Fukunaga in the future.
Fukunaga apparently did massive amounts of research for the film and spent time with migrants as well as MS gang members. From CNN:
Fukunaga apparently did massive amounts of research for the film and spent time with migrants as well as MS gang members. From CNN:
He spent two weeks with immigrants at a train yard in Tapachula, Mexico, before risking his life illegally riding on the roof of a train traveling across the border state of Chiapas.
"People get shot, trains derail, assaults happen," said Fukunaga. "I had to understand that if I fell off the train and lost a limb, I could just bleed to death out there, there'd be no-one to come pick me up."
The filmmaker, who is an American citizen, was taken aback by the camaraderie among the immigrants in spite of the danger and violence.
"Some of the bits of humor that would happen on the journey really surprised me," he told CNN. "You could laugh minutes after someone had been shot."
It is this 27-hour train ride, during which a there was a bandit attack, that forms the basis of a substantial portion of the action in "Sin Nombre."
Fukunaga also visited members of the notoriously violent Mara Salvatrucha street gangs in jail in Mexico.
"I spent about two years in two different prisons, and reduced a group of gang members down to a couple guys I could trust," he explained.
Fukunaga courted them with with gifts in the hope they would aid his research.
"After bringing them grilled chickens and enough India ink and CD components so they could make tattoo guns, they felt like they could trust me enough to hook me up with one of their outside people. Then they knew I wasn't just a cop."
The end result is a starkly realistic portrayal of the Central American gangs that make their living trafficking people to the United States.
The film's action includes a dramatic shootout scene featuring real gang members as extras alongside actors.
"All the guns had blanks," Fukunaga said. "I had a gun too, if I had to regulate the situation."
Not that that made the scene entirely unproblematic: "The guy who plays the leader in that scene is a gang member," said Fukunaga.
"Once we shot that scene he was gone. I don't know where he went, and there was no way to track him down to come back in and record audio or anything."
Nevertheless, Fukunaga maintains that the characters he chose to portray are inherently likeable people.
"I liked the gang members and the immigrants I met equally, and had equal respect for them" Fukunaga said.
"Some of the kids in these gangs, they seem like they're 28-years-old, but they're actually only 19. They just look old because of the things they've experienced."
"People get shot, trains derail, assaults happen," said Fukunaga. "I had to understand that if I fell off the train and lost a limb, I could just bleed to death out there, there'd be no-one to come pick me up."
The filmmaker, who is an American citizen, was taken aback by the camaraderie among the immigrants in spite of the danger and violence.
"Some of the bits of humor that would happen on the journey really surprised me," he told CNN. "You could laugh minutes after someone had been shot."
It is this 27-hour train ride, during which a there was a bandit attack, that forms the basis of a substantial portion of the action in "Sin Nombre."
Fukunaga also visited members of the notoriously violent Mara Salvatrucha street gangs in jail in Mexico.
"I spent about two years in two different prisons, and reduced a group of gang members down to a couple guys I could trust," he explained.
Fukunaga courted them with with gifts in the hope they would aid his research.
"After bringing them grilled chickens and enough India ink and CD components so they could make tattoo guns, they felt like they could trust me enough to hook me up with one of their outside people. Then they knew I wasn't just a cop."
The end result is a starkly realistic portrayal of the Central American gangs that make their living trafficking people to the United States.
The film's action includes a dramatic shootout scene featuring real gang members as extras alongside actors.
"All the guns had blanks," Fukunaga said. "I had a gun too, if I had to regulate the situation."
Not that that made the scene entirely unproblematic: "The guy who plays the leader in that scene is a gang member," said Fukunaga.
"Once we shot that scene he was gone. I don't know where he went, and there was no way to track him down to come back in and record audio or anything."
Nevertheless, Fukunaga maintains that the characters he chose to portray are inherently likeable people.
"I liked the gang members and the immigrants I met equally, and had equal respect for them" Fukunaga said.
"Some of the kids in these gangs, they seem like they're 28-years-old, but they're actually only 19. They just look old because of the things they've experienced."