Sin Nombre (2009)

After killing the leader of his gang who had murdered the girlfriend he had been keeping secret, Edgar Flores runs away as a stowaway on a train heading to the United States. He meets an Honduran family also making the journey, trying not to develop a relationship with Paulina Gaitán who is travelling with her father and uncle. I can’t say I’ve ever put much thought into how immigrants from Central America travel from their home countries through Mexico to reach the United States border, but I don’t think I would have imagined secretly on top of trains. The system is oddly formalized in its well-known path even while it remains illegal and extremely dangerous. The film does well in putting into perspective some examples of people who desperately make the trek, humanizing the potential of even those who are criminals.