SXSW 2009: More movies, music and smokey goodness

While the two films Sin Nombre (a dramatic mini-epic of a deadly journey across the Mexican border to America) and Alexander the Last (a mumblecore romantic comedy from one of the genre's masters) appear to be polar opposites they do have one thing in common: Men making women's lives incredibly complicated.

For his first feature length film writer/director Cary Fukunaga dramatizes the dangerous train journeys made each day by those illegally entering the United States through its southern border. Mexican gang member Casper (Edgar Flores) kills his leader in defense of a young Honduran teenager, Sayra (Paulina Gaitan), who is heading to Texas with her family and hundreds of others. Casper finds himself a wanted fugitive by his fellow members and helps Sayra in her trek north. Although it has some predictable outcomes, the honest depiction of Mexican gang violence is intensely gripping and tragic. (Fukunaga actually rode one of these trains and witnessed the abuse from bandits.) All the portrayals in Sin Nombre are strongly authentic but Flores, Gaitan and Tenoch Huerta as gang leader Lil' Mago especially stand out.

Joe Swanberg brings another of his now signature "mumblecore" films to SXSW. Like 2007's Hannah Takes the Stairs Swanberg's newest release follows a small entourage of "just folks" as they live their average lives, have occasional dalliances (sexual and mundane) and generally deal with the day to day trials of relationships and work. In Alexander the Last the good wife Alex (Jess Weixler) deals with the absence of traveling musician/husband Eliot (Justin Rice) by throwing herself into her role in a new stage play in which she has sexual scenes with an attractive young man (Barlow Jacobs). It becomes more complicated when the close bond with her sister is threatened through misunderstanding and petty jealousy. What makes Swanberg's screen relationships so interesting is his ability to show a depth of emotion in his characters with a combination of well played facial expressions and what almost seem like thrown away lines. All this in spite of hardly working with a script. The film may not be as beautifully mumbly as Hannah but it still bumbles and mumbles to a satisfying conclusion.