Recommendations of the Editorial team
If there is one thing that really characterizes Mexico, it is, in addition to the uncanny connection to death, a contrasting and hardly explainable spiritual joy in life, in pleasure, in love, in celebration, in community. Alfonso Cuarón shows this and much more in his enchanting youth film “Y Tu Mamá También”.
It is a coming-of-age drama par excellence, with fresh faces, lush landscape shots and unwavering erotic scenes, which even became an unexpected indie hit in 2001. The film didn’t get its subtitle “Lust For Life” for nothing. For Cuarón, “Y Tu Mamá También” was the way back to Hollywood, which recognized his talent but apparently did not want to promote him, after the Dickens adaptation “Great Expectations” (1998), which had already been forgotten at the time.
Renaissance of Mexican film
After “Amores Perros” (2000) by Alejandro González Iñárritu, “The Devil’s Backbone” (2001) by Guillermo del Toro and “Japón” (2002) by Carlos Reygadas (2002), “Y Tu Mamá También” manifested the impression that, for a moment, the most moving cinema came from Central America. Especially since their protagonists support each other as producers and provide each other with material – even sensitively supporting film production in their homeland (such as the bristly scandal film “We Are The Flesh” which was co-financed by Cuarón and Iñárritu).
Interest in the Mexicans has remained to this day and is regularly expressed at the Academy Awards. Iñárritu managed to win the directing Oscar twice (“Birdman” and “The Revenant”). Cuarón repeated this feat with “Gravity” and “Roma.”
But back to “Y Tu Mamá También”: The film tells the story of the two young people Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael García Bernal, in his second major role after “Amores Perros”), who have known each other since childhood and, after leaving school, freed from all expectations, unexpectedly attract the attention of the much older Luisa (Maribel Verdú). She is married to Tenoch’s cousin. To impress her, the teenagers talk about their planned trip to a real dream beach.
Their surprise couldn’t be greater when, shortly after this meeting, Luisa told them that she wanted to set off with them soon. Meanwhile, she found out that her husband had been cheating on her for a long time. And she also carries a secret with her that robs Tenoch and Julio of the innocence of their vanished childhood at the end of this magical journey into the unknown.
The film is on location was shot in Spanish and was deliberately recorded by Cuarón in the order of the script, which is rarely the case for production reasons. But this was the only way he could make the development of the characters plausible and authentic, supported by an almost familiar cast who had known each other for years. The result is impressive: “Y Tu Mamá También” is bursting with surprising, improvised scenes.
Of course, it’s all about…sex!
When they arrive in southern Mexico, in Oaxaca City, the atmosphere between the trio becomes increasingly electric. Of course, the two buddies brag about their sexual experiences (and in fact at the beginning of the film you can see both of them in a rather helpless rush of hormones with their friends who are soon setting off on study trips far away). But of course this quickly turns out to be a blatant lie as Luisa seduces one after the other. The philanderers are not that good with loyalty anyway. They both admit to each other that they slept with the other friend. Julio even had sex with Tenoch’s mother, which is exactly what the title of the film refers to.
All of this could have been a clumsy teenage flick from the drawing board, a kind of “road trip” in Spanish. But that is exactly what “Y Tu Mamá También” is, despite its revealing plot and perspective on two timid young people on the path to adulthood. This is mainly due to the wonderful Maribel Verdú, who simultaneously excites, repulses, makes the two boys curious and confronts them with naked life. Critic pope Roger Ebert perhaps summed it up best when he wrote at the cinema release that Verdú was “wiser, sexier, more complex, happier, sadder” than other comparable characters in American youth films.
Luisa fulfills Tenoch and Julio’s wish for a “threesome” – and casually gets them both to kiss and get physically closer to each other. It is such moments of freedom that never seem artificial, have no hint of a striking representation of diversity or sexual multidimensionality, and are why the film appears so truthful. Without the viewer immediately noticing it, they are introduced to the not always easy everyday life in Mexico and, above all, to the conflict of its residents in the struggle between modernity and tradition.
Beguiling images of Mexico
Cameraman Emmanuel Lubezki, who has long been one of the greatest in his profession, takes a look at Mexico, sometimes pale, sometimes radiant in all colors, with moving tracking shots, staying very close to the characters. However, the impressive camera tricks for which Lubezki – always at the Mexican’s side since Cuarón’s American debut “Little Princess” (1995) – have rightly been showered with awards in recent years cannot be seen here. Instead, a concentrated look that doesn’t tend to be overly serious for a second.
A year after the Dionysian odyssey, the friends, who have now matured into men, meet again in a café. You will be studying soon. Now they look back on their last days of freedom. Tenoch tells Julio about Luisa’s sad fate, which caused both of them so much confusion and yet allowed them to come to their senses. Tenoch and Julio will never see each other again.
“Y Tu Mamá También” is available on DVD – but currently not on any streaming portal.
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