Y Tu Mama Tambien
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Movie Reviews of Y Tu Mama Tambien
Movie Review: Mouth of Heaven
Summary: 5 Stars
I've seen this film twice now and can say it improves with re-viewing. But in looking through some of the other customer reviews, I was amazed at how many who complained about lack of plot or purpose completely missed major thematic points being flagged by the creators. There's a lot going on in this road trip/coming-of-age film if you watch and listen carefully.No writer can call a beach The Mouth of Heaven (which is where the film's lead trio are driving to) without signaling, practically with flares, that he is making a thematic point. Consider how this one gets used: The two boys think they've just made up the name to con Luisa--they've no idea where they're headed. It later turns out that a beach called Mouth of Heaven actually does exist, and they are near it. In the end, only Luisa goes to it; the boys never see it.
Backtrack for clues as to why the boys never see the Mouth of Heaven: For all their sex- and drugs-obsessed horseplay, they are not social equals. One comes from a privileged political family (part of the PRI ruling party in Mexico, now temporarily out of the presidency thanks to Vicente Fox) and the other, as he is unkindly reminded, is "peasant trash." They go to the same high school, but their post-graduation futures are going to be very different and that is what is really coming up on the horizon for them--not a celestial beach where they can honestly be friends forever.
All through the boys' juvenile dialog, and highlighted in the omniscient voiceover, are details that point out not only how the pair aren't similar, but also how much they've already internalized the social attitudes that will inevitably pull their friendship apart. The poorer one lights matches in his friend's bathroom after he uses it; the richer one uses his foot to raise the toilet seat when he visits the other one's house. As Luisa comes to discern, their relationship, while often affectionate and close, is mostly a sham and riddled with unspoken secrets and class-derived mistrusts.
Throughout the film, the creators take off on sidetracks to look at various aspects of Mexican life and culture. The film is clearly slanted toward non-Mexican audiences, because much of what they show is information to help outsiders understand the social realities facing these young men. Remember that the middle-class is much smaller in Mexico than in the US or Europe, so necessarily these two boys, while exuberantly individual, are also representing the largely dichotomized Mexican society in the way they inter-relate and yet remain separate and closed off. (Luisa, importantly, is Spanish, so she shares our view as an outsider; it is her job to help us uncover what is awry with this pair.)
Try looking at the film from these deeper and more symbolic viewpoints and I think many viewers will find the creators have given their audience a lot to think about during the film, and many reasons to care about what happens to the protagonists. The sad last scene isn't just a gathering up of plotlines, for the news about Luisa IS anti-climactic for us. The emotional punch is in watching the boys as they finally get an inkling of what Luisa was trying to tell them about themselves on that trip, and then push the realization away.
Movie Review: Your mother did what?!?!
Summary: 5 Stars
One of those movies that have grown on me a considerable amount over the years, `Y tu Mama Tambien' was initially, in my eyes, a glorified soap opera. I didn't really see the deeper things as flesh was flashed across nearly every scene in gratuitous amounts and love was tossed out the window for seemingly shallow aspects of lust. I watched, stunned in more ways than one, and simply shrugged it off as just another exploitive film toted as art.
I'm so glad that my libido forced me to watch this movie a few more times.
The story of young Tenoch and Julio may seem one-dimensional and rather obvious. They are naïve and inexperienced young men who just lost their girlfriend's to school and thus have to embark of exploring their sensuality in other ways. Enter Luisa, a much older (eleven years) woman who is going through her own set of self-discovery inducing life-altering situations. She agrees to accompany the two desperate teens on their trek to a supposed beautiful beach, but it's apparent that their intentions are far more than just a nice swim.
Well, there will be swimming, but it's not ocean water they are bathing in.
What may come across as nothing more than a series of perverse sequences with no real merit is actually a deeply rewarding look at the need to express oneself without losing sight of the person we are aching to become. These two young men are finally finding themselves, but not in the way in which they expect. What appears to be nothing more than a careless romp turns into a truly remarkable adventure that opens their eyes to who they are destined to become. The final scene (and by final I mean FINAL) is really what this film is all about; moving on from but never forgetting the events that have shaped your inner person. Luisa, a woman full of vibrancy despite her emotionally crippling circumstances, is blossoming in her later years thanks to this bout of carelessness.
So maybe that is the point; that every once in a while we need to just let go in order to find our personal balance.
For me, the acting in this film is mostly superb. The two young men, Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal, are fantastic. They really capture the awkward spontaneity that comes from adolescence, the insecurity that corrupts our best intentions. I love the way they fumble through their self confidence, as if their bravado is merely a mask for the fact that they are just as lost as everyone else; maybe even more so. My qualms with the acting can be found in Maribel Verdu, who was one of the major reasons I initially read `soap opera' when watching this film. Her actions can at times feel forced and contrived and clichéd. Both Bernal and Luna understood the naturalism of their characters, and I don't think that Verdu really mastered that.
But I am in the minority with that conclusion.
In the end I urge you to look at this film through a different set of eyes. It is easy to get caught up in the intense bluntness of the scenes (I did) and forgo the actual message being delivered to us here. Don't make the mistake of writing this one off.
Movie Review: Boys will be boys everywhere
Summary: 5 Stars
The subtitles aside, it's obvious from the very first scene of Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN that it's not a U.S. production. So, take that, MPAA!Two Mexican teenaged pals, Julio and Tenoch, have just said goodbye to their respective girlfriends, who are leaving on a vacation to Italy. Now, awash with raging hormones as boys of that age are, they spend their time obsessing about...well, you know...and doing everything possible to keep their reproductive organs occupied. Soon, they meet Luisa, a ten years-older woman married to a distant cousin of one of our heroes. Apparently devastated by her husband's ongoing infidelities, Luisa impulsively agrees to accompany Julio and Tenoch on a drive across country to a mythical beach called Heaven's Mouth. Luisa genuinely wants to see the seashore. We all know what the boys want.
I'd better tell you now that, while Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN is exuberantly erotic, it's not smutty. Or, at least, it shouldn't be in the eye of the beholder unless it's been forgotten what life involves.
The film is, of course, a coming of age story. Luisa's unabashed and uninhibited sexuality puts a predictable strain on the boys' friendship as she tries, at times with great exasperation, to get them to set aside their adolescent callowness (and grow up, for Chrissakes!). But, while the movie is sometimes a comedy and very much a teenaged boy's fevered fantasy, it's more than that. Julio's family is of middle-class affluence, and Tenoch's is simply just rich. In their drive across Mexico, the boys barely notice the poverty and police presence so much a part of the country because their minds are elsewhere. But, the audience sees it, and is reminded of the economic gulf separating societal elements by the occasional voiceover of an unseen narrator. One particularly poignant incident involves the travelers paying a monetary tribute to a rural "queen" in order to pass a roadblock, a garland of flowers stretched across the pavement by poor villagers.
Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN doesn't rate the appellation of "great". The theme has been presented too many times before. But the humanity of it is intensely engaging. The boys, played by Gael Bernal and Diego Luna, are admittedly immature in all the ways that make even girls of the same age roll their eyes in disbelief. But they carry it off with such zest that it's impossible not to like them. And I can testify as a former adolescent boy that Maribel Verdu as Luisa could rightly be the centerfold of the most feverish daydream. However, her role goes much deeper. As the plot unfolds, the audience realizes that the ostensible reason for her leaving her husband isn't what's driving her. When we learn what the real cause is, we are left profoundly sad at the immense tragedy of it.
See this terrific movie, especially if you're the parent of a teen boy and you've forgotten what demons drive a young male of that age. This could be the best foreign film of 2002.
Movie Review: It's so much more....
Summary: 5 Stars
There is a moment in "Y Tu Mama Tambien" where the film arcs from being merely great to classic. It's a scene towards the end of the film, when the three prinicpal characters let loose in a beachside bar with copious amounts of alcohol. Luisa, leaving the raunchy conversation, slides over to a jukebox, selects a song, and then turns to look directly into the camera. She stares momentarily, and the begins an enticing dance, beckoning us into the story, her story, their story. Suddenly, everything transcends the real, and we, the audience, become one with the film. For me, that will be a cinematic moment never to forget.As I will never forget "Y Tu Mama Tambien". Part teenage sex comedy, part slice of life, part wonderful delve into the deeper sides of life, somehow it all melds into one amazing film. We first meet two late teen boys, Julio and Tenoch, who come from two different worlds, who manage to forge a complex friendship. They are crass, disgusting, drug abusing boys who are so full of themselves, so full of life, you fall in love with them immediately.
Together they schmooze the innocent Luisa, who, after discovering her husband had an affair while away, decides to take the boys up on their offer of a trip to an ocean. The three of them have a road trip of a lifetime, full of revelation, self-disclosure and real human moments. The film soon becomes more, so much more than a sex romp through the Mexican countryside, but slices of life that only this film has presented. It is bold, and real.
Bold and real, which may scare people away. The unrated version, which showed across the country, is the masterpiece which you should see. For once, theaters dared to carry an unrated film, and thus prove that the American public is willing to see movies that aren't cowtowed to a rating system that's marginally effective for parents trying to make judgments for their families, but the rest of adult American completely ignores. The fact that this film did so well, and is critically a sucecss, should bode well for the entertainment industry.
That issue aside, this film is life, and its real. If seeing life in all of its raw and uncensored moments bothers you, I suggest moving along and skipping this film. However, if you want to see a film I know is the best film of 2002, then check out Y Tu Mama. It's tagline gives us some more mental food to chew on:
"Life has its ways to teach us. Life has its ways to confuse us. Life has its ways to change us. Life has its ways to astonish us. Life has its ways to hurt us. Life has its ways to cure us. Life has its ways to inspire us."
Thanks for inspring us with "Y Tu Mama Tambien".
Movie Review: a trojan horse
Summary: 5 Stars
i saw this movie at the recommendation of my friend with some reluctance.first, i knew that alfonso cuaron had directed two films before and i didn't like them.and second, if my friend like it, i knew that this movie probably has a lot of sex. but i went and saw it anyway and i was completely blown away. it was quite a moving experience. and since a lot of people (no doubt) have summarized the film, i'll just review the dvd.the format of the menu, is quite nice; big, bold letters with scenes from the movie playing in the background and accompanied by some muzak.the first surprise is probably the first special feature you'll come across- the short film, Me La Debes, which, translated, means "You Owe One". it is pretty much a companion piece to the film, directed by carlos cuaron, alfonso cuaron's brother (who also co-wrote Y Tu Mama Tambien). you can see that much of Y tu Mama's profanity and sexuality came form carlos cuaron. this short film is about a family who have sex before going to bed(but not with each other!the father has sex with the maid, the daughter has sex with her boyriend). i found it brilliant and hilarious, though it does lack Y Tu Mama's depth and poigancy.the deleted scenes are a bit disappointing, especially if you're expecting more sex.you only get three extra scenes and they're less than a minute long each..but the stoned scene is pretty funny.the making-of featurette is great, even though it is too short. it is delivered in the same spirit as the movie, complete with the deadpan narration, and just as funny,too. my favorite part is alfonso cuaron's practical joke on lead actress maribel verdu.and then there's the commentary, alas nothing from the director but form the cast members, who share as much insights and anecdotes as their characters.and lastly the trailers, which partly annoy me, 'cuz they don't really tell you much about the movie. and seeing that you never hear a word of dialogue, you'd think you're going to watch a silent film.it's the same for the majority of trailers for foreign films.the digital tranfer is great, giving much sheen to Emmanuel Lubezki's verite cinematography. and the sound's pretty good, too although this type of movie doesn't really require 5.1 audio.the movie is really the reason to buy this dvd. it lets you see a another part of world cinema, mexico. and along with amores perros, y tu mama tambien puts it firmly on the cinematic map. you kind of wish there were more movies like this;but then again, that's what makes them so special,so maybe not. anyway Y Tu Mama Tambien is a treat.