A few nights ago, Jon Stewart made fun of Lou Dobbs for a recent tirade against illegal immigrants, exclaiming: “Illegal immigrants? Wake up, Rip Van Winkle! D’you fall asleep in June 2008? Nobody gives a shit about them anymore!”
We agree with him in the political sense — there are so many real scapegoats on which to blame our economic problems now! — but their stories might come back into full focus in the cultural sense, as this year’s first international critical darling, Sin Nombre, gains momentum. Centered around a runaway Mexican gang youth and his Honduran girl companion as they seek to cross the border into the US, Sin Nombre — Sundance Lab alumnus Cary Joji Fukunaga’s directorial debut — has already won Best Director and Best Cinematography at Sundance [Read our original Sundance coverage of it here].
We’ve read mostly rave reviews (spoiler-free excerpts linked after the jump), and we’re excited for its limited release this weekend — produced by Mexican superstar-sweethearts Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna, directed by a first-time feature-filmmaker, and promising to be a watchable un-glossy “immigration” tale (of which there aren’t many), it sounds like it could be a new favorite.
