Review and linguistic observations of 'Sin nombre'

'Sin Nombre' by new director Cary Fukanaga will surely have a lasting impact on all of those who have no scruples watching subtitled foreign language films this year.

After seeing the pre-release showing in the "Rio" cinema in Dalston with a Q and A at the end with the talented young Fukanaga, the authenticity of the whole production was clear. It is a harrowing tale of two narratives, one following the journey of the Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) and her father and uncle on their trip to the US border from their native Honduras, and the story of the Mexican fugutive Willy, or "Caspar" (Edgar Flores) as he is known from his former gang, the Mara, who now hunt him. The two coincide on the train on their different jouneys and their struggles bind them together in friendship, and ultimately a tragic love story.

While this deeply moving film could still have an emotionally powerful effect through reading the subtitles, I think the effect is at its best if you either understand Spanish, or even better, are familiar with Honduran and Mexican dialiects of Spanish, which differ quite greatly from Castillian. That isn't meant to sound pretentious, in the pompous attitude that "the translation is a travesty" or anything along those lines, just the sound of the voices in this film are what really deliver the full effect. It is the Quinian problem of a linguistic utterance only being capable of delivering its complete meaning in the language in which it was uttered, for speakers of that language. I can't imagine listening to the moving words of Ronal Reagan in his speech about the Challenger Space Shuttle explosion in Spanish as much as I can't imagine an English oral version of Willy's forboding words about his former gang during the film: "La Mara tiene una buena memoria". The range of accents, 'street' language, the beauty of the Americanisms such as "homie"/"homito" and "Smiley", and the pronuciation of "Six Flags" and "New Jersey" have social comments and emotional worth that have a far greater effect than the words themselves. Phonology, phonetics, sociolinguistics and pragmatics seem to prevail for enriching content here. A truly brilliant film though.