Sin Nombre

What separates Sin Nombre from other films is the same quality that prevents the film from becoming great: the use of symbolism. The film is replete with metaphors. Twin storylines which become intertwined when Hondurans attempting to illegally immigrate to the United States become entangled with members of a Mexican crime family.

The refugees travel by train through Mexico, surreptiously dodging deportation by the border police as they move northwards. Some Mexicans welcome them and provide assistance, tossing fruits to the migrants; others curse them and throw stones. A family - a father, his brother, and his daughter - strive to reunite with family in New Jersey and as it is with real life, not everyone reaches their goal.

Religious icons illustrate the story of the two members of the Mara Salvatrucha as they follow parallel paths to Heaven and Hell. Casper has become disillusioned with his illegal lifestyle and chooses to leave the gang and leave the county. Smiley is a youth who wishes to become initiated into the gang and is willing to kill Casper to prove it.

Although they may be involved in regular gun fights and seek to kill their rivals, the Mara adorn themselves with tattoos of crosses and rosary beads. Likewise, the passengers on the train pray that they will reach their destination.

Smiley begins the film living with his grandmother who curses Casper and the rest of the gang and can only receive his M.S. tattoo by catching his former “homie” and killing him. Casper has recorded images from his life on a digital camera, which he has kept to himself and reviews occasionally. He must give it up to pay for his river crossing into Texas.

After killing the boss and leaving the gang, Casper catches a train with the Honduran family. He meets Sayra and tells her about an airplane plant he saw when he once organized a human smuggling expedition and how he wanted to climb the giant globe in front of the factory. When she survives and crosses the border, I thought that she should have tried to find the globe and climb it for Casper, since the film is largely based on symbolism. She calls her family instead, recalling an earlier scene where her father forces her to memorize the telephone number. But in a sense, Casper didn’t complete his journey to reconciliation because literally falls a few feet short of his goal.

Tension is successfully by putting the characters in jeopardy via a variety of situations throughout the film. The actors do their job but none of the portrayals are spectacular. Like Gomorrah, Sin Nombre shows how crime has become insidious across the globe and how many indigent people see felonies as the escape from poverty.

Gomorrah

This Italian film with English subtitles relies on the contrast between innocent youth and the guilty actions of the members of the Camorra crime syndicate in the region of Campania to make its dramatic point. The insidious organization, supposedly larger than the Cosa Nostra, recruits young people to fill its ranks, which deplete rapidly due to an enormous number of homicides. Two teenaged friends realize that they must become mortal enemies because one of them joined a separatist faction. Two dim-witted young men go from playing Scarface to stealing weapons. A grocery delivery boy uses his position to trick a woman to open her door so she can be killed.

Symbolism is frequent throughout the film. After gunfire erupts on the highway, a car of a rival organization crashes into a cemetery filled with angelic sculptures. The film in a microcosm is symbolized by a wide-angle shot from an apartment complex where children play in a kiddie pool on one level while Camorra members search for someone on the roof.

The film follows different storylines that illustrate different aspects of the Camorra: a designer of counterfeit clothing, the elderly paymaster, a developer dumping toxic waste in a quarry, and more. To a degree, the film lacks both a beginning and an ending but it illustrates tragically how the group constantly pervades life (and death) in Campania.

Freakonomics

Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt interesting book for the guy who likes to generate “controversial” discussions at parties. So sumo wrestlers cheat, drug dealers live with their parents, and real estate agents receive a higher closing price when they sell a house that they own themselves. OK. Steven Levitt delivers his arguments in a light, easy to read, slightly esoteric format.

The economics are sound. Basically the pretence is that every individual is interested in maximising their utility. OK.

The most contentious chapter concerns Levitt’s belief that the decline of the crime rate in the late 1990s was caused by the legalisation of abortion in the 1970s. As a result of Roe v. Wade, indigent women who would have otherwise brought a hardened criminal into the world received abortions. However, I feel that the issue is far more complex and involves multiple factors.

It’s sort of like that TV show where the dude finds a briefcase containing details of his imminent death and attempts to change the future. Is changing his behaviour enough to cheat death or did he die because of the actions he took in light of this new information?

Levitt makes a very solid statement that incentives drive behaviour. I definitely agree; the world is comprised of choices and consequences. Levitt’s point is similar to Choice Theory: individuals choose to behave the way they do because this behaviour fills a need. People are responsible for their actions because they responded to an incentive and chose to maximise their utility.

(On that note, why don’t we teach more decision-making in schools?)

I believe that intrinsic motivation is much more powerful than extrinsic motivation. Coaches steer the ship but if the players believe personally in the ship’s direction, much less short-term coaching is required. According to Levitt and Choice Theory, coaches must create meaningful incentives to engineer the actions they desire. Every student-athlete is an individual and this is easier said than done.