The soundtrack for Cary Joji Fukunaga’s astonishing feature debut “Sin Nombre,” beautifully realized and composed by Marcelo Zarvos (“The Good Shepherd,” an upcoming vignette in “New York I Love You”) doesn’t come out until March 24, but the music is available digitally today via ITunes. The film is about Central American immigrants that go through extreme circumstances and perils riding trains to reach Mexico and the United States and attempt to enter illegally.
As already noted by our brief SXSW Film Fest report and those who already saw the film at Sundance earlier this year, “Sin Nombre” is a pretty spectacular debut for filmmaker Cary Joji Fukunaga.
The soundtrack is equally crisp and moving, and Lakeshore Records, the fine folks putting out the disc, both digitally and physically, have given us an exclusive track from the album.
It’s rather amazing that Focus Features, put this movie out themselves with no stars and in Spanish and didn’t just acquire a well-made movie at a film festival. Major kudos to them for backing this film.
The film is incredibly intense, realistic and filled with a truthful immediacy. And the filmmaker experienced some crazy first hand hazards to make this film happen. He told some of the story to Indiewire today and Times. I was making a film about people’s misery,” he told the New York Times. “I didn’t want to talk about things I didn’t know firsthand.”
“I felt strange about the possibility of profit on a story about real people risking their lives. So, despite my friends protests, I decided to ride the train…. The same trains marauded by the gangs and bandits, exploited by the police, and at the mercy of the weather which saw fit to derail two trains that same summer. We were attacked within three hours my first night. The train often stops. I heard the distinct and pops of gunshots, always louder than they seem in the movies, then the screams of immigrants passing the word: “Pandillas! Pandillas!” (gangsters). Everyone scattered. The next day I talked to two Hondurans who were next to the attack. They told me a Guatemalan immigrant didn’t want to give two bandits his money so they shot him and threw him under the train. Two days later when I finally made it back to the town I started from, I learned the police had found the body of a Guatemalan immigrant, shot and abandoned near where I calculated the attack took place. That was my first trip, but the reality of the event stuck with me. Nothing could have driven home the sensation of fear and impotence than what I had felt first hand with those immigrants.”
Here’s the trailer too, we highly encourage you to check out this film. It hits theaters this Friday, March 20 in limited release.
“Sin Nombre” soundtrack tracklisting.
01. The Journey
02. Train Arrival
03. Veracruz
04. Daydreaming
05. Ride Into The Storm
06. The Attack
07. Sin Nombre
08. Tierra Blanca
09. Orizaba Chase
10. Prayer
11. El Sol
12. Sayra
13. Guatemala Crossing
14. The Tower
15. Rio Grande
16. She Is Gone
17. Migra
18. Sayra In The Church
19. Sin Nombre Reprise