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‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’ tackles tough issues
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A film about Mexico – its people, politics, and classes woven together by threads of winding country roads – “Y Tu Mama Tambien” chronicles two teen-age boys straining at the brink of their adult life and one lonely woman who has had enough of hers.
The boys are the best of friends, so close that they spend all their time together, speak in unison, and even masturbate in chorus while sunning themselves on parallel diving boards. They have matching tattoos and are founding members of a club in which they are bound by rules such as “anyone who roots for an American team will be expelled” and “never sleep with another member’s girlfriend.” These rules are not enduring, however, for the boys not only break societal conventions but also violate their own regulations.
Despite their facade of great friendship, there are vast gaps in their intimacy, which neither boy can recognize or remove. The chasm between their two lives is perpetuated by their opposite social status: Tenoch (Diego Luna) is the son of a politician whose money (the source of which is somewhat suspect) provides him with a large villa, servants and plenty of money for drugs. His mother is good-natured, if loony, and more concerned with clearing her boy’s aura of bad vibes than with clearing his head of drugs.
Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal) lives very differently, supported by a working-class mother and a slightly zany environmentalist sister. The boys do not approach the differences in their lives.
They have, up to this point, been united by their frantic intimacy and a shared taste for parties, drugs, sex and lazing about.
At the wedding of some member of Tenoch’s family, the friends are amusing themselves by counting the number of bodyguards in attendance when they spot and begin to lust after the mysterious Luisa (Maribel Verdu). In their clumsy flirtation with the woman, they invite her to join them on a trip to an imaginary beach. The invitation is really one for sex, for sex is a central topic of discussion and activity in the lives of these two adolescents. Sex is main theme throughout the film: it begins with sex, the conversation of the three travelers turns to sex, and the characters’ friendships are forged and broken by sex.
Luisa surprises the boys when, having heard her husband’s confession of infidelity, she calls to confirm the beach invitation. Of course, the boys leap at the chance to escort the woman into their fantasy. Honesty has not been an issue in their friendship, but before the film is over the truth will have unalterably changed their two lives. Their road trip will reveal the true nature of their two characters and that they have continually lied to each other and to themselves about their true feelings for each other.
Director Alfonso Cuaron (”Great Expectations”) presents a portrait of his native Mexico in the context of this road trip. An omniscient narrator comments on the action, the voice’s intervention often silencing characters in the midst of their conversation. Through the narration, the audience learns many important elements of the personalities involved and also learns about Mexico. Although the characters seem only to drive through the countryside unaffected by its poverty and power, the narration reveals their truer understanding.
In a particularly telling moment, Tenoch notices the name of a town they are passing. The narrator divulges that this is the hometown of Tenoch’s maid, a woman who, until the age of four, he called Mama. He had never before been near the town and makes no comment to his companions, but the moment says a lot about the society in which he and all characters in the film are engaged. Cuaron presents not only the sheltered and comparatively idyllic lives of his protagonists; he often sends the camera off to follow someone to the other side of society.
Ruth Marcus, Columbia Daily Spectator (Columbia U.)