SIN NOMBRE EXPOSES THE PERILS OF MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES
Sayra (played by Paulina Gaitan) is on a long train trip from Honduras to relatives in New Jersey through Guatemala and México in Sin Nombre (nameless), directed by Cary Fukunaga. Although she must elude the border patrol, the main peril is gang warfare inside México, beginning at the Chiapas border. At gunpoint, the Salvratrucha gang (an actual gang that also operates in Los Angeles) tries to extract money from migrating Guatemalans as well as Mexicans, including Willy (played by Edgar Flores), who eventually is trying to escape a death sentence from his own gang and a rival gang. For Willy, the gang’s disrespect for his girlfriend is a motive to kill its leader, Mago (played by Tenoch Huerta Mejia), who is molesting Sayra. The two then bond but only one survives. Because the film shows exactly how the trek occurs for millions of migrants, how the criminal gangs operate, and why most migrants do not complete the trip, the Political Film Society has nominated Sin Nombre as best film exposé of 2009. MH
12 REMAKES12 ANGRY MEN WITH A RUSSIAN ACCENT
In 1957, the film 12 Angry Men peered into the inner workings of a hypothetical jury in which an 11-1 vote to convict turns into a 12-0 acquittal because a lone juror insists that the evidence must be reviewed logically rather than allow a rush to judgment. The Russian film 12, directed by Nikita Mikhalkov, takes the same plot and provides a window into life in present-day Russia by providing biographical and temperamental portraits of most of the jurors who represent different social categories and ethnic groups. On trial is a Chechen youth accused of killing his guardian, a Russian soldier who took pity on him when he was orphaned in an attack on his family. In short cuts between jury deliberations, events of the murder are portrayed. Extraordinary acting occurs throughout, as an uneducated taxi driver emerges from blind belief in the guilt of the defendant while others use their occupational skills in picking apart the testimony for the prosecution. Russian society is unveiled as corrupt by the most devious among the jurors. The one selected as foreman (no women were on the jury) holds out, arguing that the youth will live longer in prison that outside if released because the real killers will want to shut him up lest they are fingered and put on trial. For the extraordinary portrait of Russian society today, the Political Film Society has nominated 12 as best exposé of 2009. MH
AN AMERICAN AFFAIR EXPLOITS THE KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
In a story that could be compared with The Reader (2008), directed by William Olsson, a teenage schoolboy approaches an older woman with sex on his mind but gets caught in a deeper plot than he realizes. The boy, Adam Stafford (played by Cameron Bright), attends a Catholic school, Holy Cross, in 1963 at a time in his life when sexual identities are being formed, albeit awkwardly. His parents (Perrey Reeves and Noah Wyle) are journalists who are treating him as a child whereas he wants some space to adolesce. Out of his bedroom window he spies uncovered breasts on a beautiful woman, Catherine Caswell (played by Gretchen Mol), who has recently moved into the neighborhood. Adam jumps to the occasion by reading her mail and then proposing to work odd jobs for her. She finds an odd job—clearing all vegetation in the back yard to make way for something new. When his parents find that he is working for her, his mother disapproves but his father allows him to continue so long as he does not stay with her beyond the work required. It seems that Catherine has a bad reputation from which their son must be protected, and Adam hears a few clues about her past. Accordingly, he follows her in a secret meeting with a top CIA agent, Lucian Carver (played by James Rebhorn), and her former husband Charlie (played by Kris Arnold) drags him into her house in a rage after discovering him in the alley outside her home one night. In a chance encounter Carver and Charlie meet with a Cuban named Del Valle (played by Gerry Paradiso). In a conversation between Carver and Catherine, there is a hint of an assignation plot involving JFK. After the assassination, the film, ends with an unexplained tragedy, suggesting that the CIA is up to dirty tricks as ever, but the film ends just when the plot becomes interesting. MH