Sin Nombre: Smiley's initiation.

An early scene in Sin Nombre depicts the initiation of the boy, Smiley, into the Mara Salvatrucha gang. This is my favorite scene in the movie (though my favorite moment is still the satisfying machete-to-the-neck scene that Casper inflicts on Mago about 40 minutes in), and while I do admit that many of the reasons it is a good scene are obvious, I do feel like certain elements of it that appealed to me may have gone unnoticed by other viewers.

First, the points everyone knows about. The scene where he kills the gangster is representative of Smiley's loss of innocence. The scene where Smiley is being beaten up by the gang members in an attempt to prove his toughness is clearly showing the desperation of children of the area to join the gangs to distance themselves to the gang's violence on civilians, surround themselves with people who will protect them from the other gangs in the area, and to seem cool. Smiley's proud grin after he endures his beating and the scene later in the movie where he shows off his gun to younger boys prove that kids there think gangs are cool, likely because they get away with doing whatever they want thanks to their brutality and intimidation.

Smiley's initiation doesn't end with his merciless punching, though. Soon after, Mago brings him out to a captured rival gang member. I'm, like, 60% sure he was in the Chavala gang before he quit, as he professes he did. There may have been some consonants rearranged. Maybe an r I'm leaving out. I digress. With a makeshift pipe gun (easily one of the most interesting improvised weapons I've seen outside of the action genre), Willy/Casper guides Smiley's hands and they murder the captured gang member on the assertion by Mago that someone who was once a Chavala will always be a Chavala. Smiley's reluctance indicates that he wishes he didn't have to do it, because he feels like he has to, both out of fear of what Mago will do to him and desperation to join the gang. Even Casper doesn't seem happy about it, and this comes into play later when he gives Mago his resignation from the Mara Salvatrucha gang in the form of a machete to the neck. Sorry, But I like that scene a lot.

On to the aspects of Smiley's initiation that I felt some may have overlooked. The symbolism I noticed has nothing to do with Smiley's actions, Casper's, or Mago's. The ex-Chavala they executed is what stuck with me the most. He begged them not to kill him on the grounds that he was no longer a Chavala. But, as Mago said, "Once a Chavala, always a Chavala." And so he had to die. One gangster who regretted his decision to join a gang died so that another gangster could be born. In the figurative sense that he just became a gangster of course. But it isn't just the meaningful eye contact Smiley makes with the ex-gangster before the kill. This concept entered my mind. If the gangster wasn't an ex-Chavala, but an ex-Mara Salvatrucha member, the scene would be a moment from Looper. For those who don't get that reference, what I mean is that the ex-Chavala represents what Smiley would become if he stayed in the gang. Smiley can never completely escape his fate at the end of a gun if he submits to the will of the violent overlords of the area. He isn't just crying because an apparently innocent man is going to die; he's also crying because he is going to die just like that man, even after he tries to put that life behind him. It is a permanent, irreversible decision that means the difference between dying any day of his life or dying after he tries to settle down with a family.

...Or at least it WOULD have meant all that if the ending wasn't so dang positive... bittersweet at worst.

Speaking purely from the standpoint of an audience member, I feel like they should have put the ex-gangster's execution in the frame. Seeing the gore would have grossed out anyone less desensitized than me and driven home the point that these gangs are a horrible blister on the planet.