Smells Like a Journey You'd Only Want to Take in the Cinema

Director: Cary Fukunaga

Main cast: Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores, and Kristyan Ferrer

A girl and a boy are brought together journeying through central America towards the United States. Caspar’s girlfriend has been killed and he has transgressed a fundamental law of his gang. He is fleeing from the former “hombres” who are now hunting him down. Sayra’s drama lies ahead of her, with her new family she is travelling towards in New Jersey. With police and border patrol providing further obstacles, these two slowly develop an increasing reliance on each other. 

DVD Release Date: 1st February 2010 

It is hard to believe that this is the debut feature from director Cary Fukunaga (even harder than it is to believe that such a wonderful surname actually exists). The film seems so bold and arresting, dropping you into the ganglands of Mexico and following the well-travelled immigrant trail towards the American border. Fukunaga bravely confronts these enormous social issues and the people that they affect, giving the film a strong sense of authenticity. We see the codes of greeting between gang members, the slang they exchange, the brutal rights of initiation. Despite the many depictions of gang culture than cinema offers, this film goes beyond the worn out stereotypes. The gang’s leader is utterly ghastly, his entire face obscured by enormous tattoos, yet we see him cuddling a baby as he taunts a captive from a rival gang. Caspar gives a brotherly hand to the newest recruit, helping him to carryout his first kill.

It is initially unclear how Sayra fits into this criminal narrative, as her story begins with her family in Honduras. In fact, the film doesn’t immediately set itself up as a road movie, making it seem as though the characters drift together quite organically. America is the ultimate promise land, with Sayra’s father continuously consulting his map of the route through Mexico. The scenes of people crowded atop the train as it travels through the night offer a beautiful portrayal of the immigrants’ journeys, with shadowy figures moving through the dark into the unknown.

Unfortunately for British filmmakers, this film emphasises the vast difference in aesthetics between social realism in our corner of the world and the beauty of depicting an authentic view of Latin America. Compared to the UK's beige and grey gritty housing estate films, the bright colours of the graffiti smeared across every slum and the vibrant splendour of the landscape in this film is truly breathtaking. Despite the beauty he captures, Fukunaga never seems to put style over substance, prioritising social criticism and treating the characters and their situations with sympathy and delicacy that suggests that this is a film made with a lot of heart.

While Sayra and Caspar become increasingly close, the film wisely shies away from a romantic love story, keeping the audience more unsure of how events are going to progress. Instead, theirs seems to be a bond of mutual responsibility. As the chase to find and kill Caspar escalates, the narrative becomes slightly too overblown and machismo, but this doesn’t detract from the emotional core of the story. Fukunaga elegantly combines social exploration with enjoyable action. It will be exciting to see where this director next takes his incredible talent (and amazing name).