Y Tu Mama Tambien - Conflict Outward or Within - Movie Review Example

Y Tu Mamá También- conflict outward or within? Y Tu Mamá También (And your Mother too) is the fourth film of director Alfonso Cuaron which marks his return to Mexican roots. The film is a coming of age tale set against the backdrop of the picturesque Mexican countryside. Like most coming of age tales, the central theme is the transition from youthful exuberance of high school adolescence to the responsibilities of adulthood. While one, at first glance would dismiss this as similar to the overproduced run of the mill cinema that Hollywood repeats (Road Trip, Boat Trip, Euro Trip, Harold and Kumar, American Pie) that combines sex obsessed teenagers going on random road journeys to fulfill hedonistic sexual pleasures helped along by excessive alcohol drinking, Y Tu Mamá También comes as ‘just ripped out of the soil’ fresh that sets the bar for this genre. Coming of age tales are made solely for pandering to pre-pubescent boys, teenagers and men who do not wish to challenge their mental faculties, contain gratuitous amounts of sex and crude humor and in this regard Y Tu Mamá También is no exception. Demi-pornographic to the point that it contains some of the most sexually explicit scenes to be ever seen in a mainstream release including a double masturbation scene by the swimming pool and a fellatio scene performed by Luisa (played by Spanish veteran Marisa Verdu) on both lead duo Tenoch (Diego Lana) and Julio(Gael ‘Che Guerra’ Garcia Bernal ) simultaneously. It thus follows that the mature woman is a sexist fantasy straight out of Penthouse and that the crude and monotonous dialogue seems expressly designed to cater to teenage audiences. This is where Alfono Cuarons direction and Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography make the film transcend its genre roots and create an exhilarating adventure in narrative, eroticism and social commentary. In particular I wish to show how the film cinematography reveals a main underlying theme: which is not the general consensus about the coming of age and the realization of adulthood but a social and political commentary about Mexico. Tenoch belongs to the upper class; is the son of the Secretary of State, Harvard Economist father and a bored and wealthy Mother who is occupied with spirituality. Julio belongs to the working lower middle class. The division by social class is mirrored by the ethnic divisions in the country. The largest ethnic group in Mexico (around 60%) is classified as mestizo or ‘mixed’. These are people who are the descendants of intermarriage between Europeans (predominantly Spanish) and the local Amerindian peoples of Central America. The Amerindians themselves make up some 30% of the Mexican population. ‘Europeans’ make up 9%, leaving 1% to cover all other groups. The 9% of Europeans make up the Mexican middle class. On this basis, the decision by his parents to name ‘Tenoch’ after an Aztec chieftain who founded what is now Mexico City is a calculated attempt to assert ‘Mexican-ness’. Julio is the son of a single mother who has worked for one firm as a secretary her whole adult life. They are best friends and inseparable brothers; yet immediately we see the differences and possible conflict- Tenoch is rich, white, Criollo, and a part of the ruling class while Julio is not rich, dark, Mestizo, and working class. PART I - THE CITY The first few frames of the film, a scene where Tenoch furiously rams his girlfriend with all nude buttock-pounding fervor sets the style of the camera placement that will be repeated throughout the film. The camera in an unobtrusive long shot enters Tenoch’s bedroom, shows a glimpse of the poster of ‘Harold and Maude’ (a movie about a young boy falling in love with an older woman which establishes that it is Tenoch’s room). Lubezki uses the ‘shakycam technique’ to its full potential; each shot here is unsteady and wavering; drawing the viewer in believing that he, uninvited, has stumbled onto the scene. The camera pans around the couple moving closer until the couple occupy most of the screen where the couple promises to be faithful to each other. The next scene where the character Julio is introduced to the viewer is similar in cinematography and style. Julio’s girlfriend Cecilia’s pediatrician father, clearly disapproves of Julio which is evident as Julio sits nervously on the living room couch waiting with him for Cecelia to get ready to leave for the airport. While Tenoch’s scene used the color yellow to give it a soft ethereal dreamlike feel, the sex scene between Julio and Cecilia is fast and furtive; the lighting is bright daylight and could not contrast more with the previous scene. This difference in color and camera placement shows the difference in class to which the boys belong. While the camera enters Tenoch’s room slowly (almost apologetically) to a world where it does not belong, in contrast to the camera that is already placed in Cecilia’s room as Julio enters it. The matter-of-fact, unflinching way in which Cuaron films his sex scenes purges them of indecency and changes the way you look at the film. A point common to both of these scenes is that the camera never truly closes up on the subjects. We observe the action but never truly the emotion of the characters. This subtleness is where Cuaron’s filmmaking is at its finest. The scenes achieve an emotional disconnection (not really attracting but never repulsing the viewer) simply because there are no deeper meanings, no underlying feelings behind the sex. This is the first instance which questions labeling Y Tu Mamá También as a coming of age film. As the duo make their way back from the airport in Tenoch’s car the dialogue is plain and laced with crude humor. The camera point of view shot alternates between them. When the conversation drifts onto the academic subjects Tenoch is being forced to take and how political demonstrations are causing traffic jams in the city, the camera is placed on the outside of the car framing the duo through the windscreen. This is another example where Y Tu Mamá También’s cinematography reveals a larger theme of the film. The windscreen shelters the occupants from the harshness of the outside world. Here the windscreen figuratively symbolizes the division between the two different worlds that occupy the same Mexico. One is of Tenoch and Julio who live in a sheltered bubble and whose lives revolve around sex and routine teenage issues. The other is of Mexico and its locals whose lives are starkly different from the boys, where political demonstrations have rocked the city and are a precursor to the change the country is going through. At one point, Tenoch and Julio find themselves stuck in traffic, during which they spend their time sitting in Tenochs car clowning around, never wondering for a second what might have caused the jam-up. At this point the sound is cut off (almost crudely) and the entire focus is on Lubezki’s camera. A narrator informs us that it was caused by a migrant bricklayer who was just struck by a speeding bus while crossing a busy intersection, killing him instantly. The camera is focused on the accident spot as seen from inside the car. As the car passes by, both Tenoch and Julio do not give a single glance to the scene of accident where the police and the dead migrant worker are seen. This shows the apathy the upper and middle class have for the working migrants. This is one of several moments in Y Tu Mamá También when all sound disappears and a deep male voice talks over the image onscreen. In that particular instant of time, just before the narrator’s voice can be heard, there is a loud silence which is almost deafening. The viewer’s focus is entirely on Lubezki’s restless camera that leaves the protagonists to focus on Mexican realities that have no bearing on the privileged lifestyles of the two youngsters. Mexico is characterized by a small wealthy middle class and a large working class, many of whom have moved to Mexico City to look for work. This is the subject of the ‘commentary’ about the worker who is killed crossing the road in order to save time getting to work. This technique is repeated again after the wedding scene, where the camera leaves the three protagonists and follows a waitress serving food to the bodyguards. The visuals which accompany the voice over show the maid staff, and drivers of the various limousines eating their meals outside. They have not even been given a place to sit, they are not deemed important enough to have a table or even an area set aside for them in the house. This is a direct attack on the class division that exists in Mexico and further point out that this film is a social commentary. As Lubezki’s camera focuses on this class, the narrator informs us in a dispassionate voice about the President’s activities of that day and the next. The President apologizes for a political massacre which has taken place and then immediately takes a flight to Seattle for a conference on globalization. This shows the hypocrisy of the political class which is focusing on globalization while at the same time denying Mexicans their basic human rights. This concept used in the above scenes is known as ‘heterodiegetic narration’ which is derived from French New wave cinema. In the film it is used effectively to contrast the privileged lifestyle of the few with the reality of the common Mexicans. Those scenes and an ironic third person narration suggest a critical view of their shenanigans that is never fully realized. The narrator speaks from a point of view that is both distant and up-close, able to speak of both Julio’s and Tenoch’s lives, secrets, thoughts and emotions, usually parallel to one another, as well as a third-person view of supposedly random events and information that add meaning and depth to setting and the passing of time. Despite the good times that Tenoch and Julio are having, the world around them, full of tragedy and sadness, goes on. They are oblivious to it all, never allowing reality to intrude on their happiness. Since Tenoch’s father is the board member of a country club, the youngsters have access to it even on days when it is closed for maintenance. A clear example of how the elite choose to exploit their influence. The shower scene shows the youngsters clowning around in the nude while Tenoch belittles Julio for not having performed a circumcision. This is another indication of the class divide that exists between the two. Julio’s lack of circumcision clearly represents the indigenous Mexican while Tenoch’s circumcision represents the mentality of the Mexican elite which behaves and copies the American lifestyle (Circumcision is an American tradition). Another example of this elitism is seen in Tenoch’s house where the camera is focused on a maid walking upstairs carrying a tray of food. In the background we can hear a phone ringing, which as we find out is placed right next to Tenoch. He however does not bother to answer it, waiting instead for the maid to do so. The maid serves him the food, answers the phone, wipes the phone after she touches it and then gives it to him. Tenoch is seen handing out orders using hand gestures. The maid is a dark skinned Mestizo a symbol of the lower class that must serve the Mexican elite. PART II- THE JOURNEY Emmanuel Lubeski’s handheld camera informs us of her emotional state by spying on her through broken windowpanes or roaming through her immaculate apartment while she waits for the boys to pick her up for the trip. The start of the journey is characterized by Julio having to request his sister (who is a political major student) for the car. The camera follows the duo locating Julio’s sister amidst a political demonstration and getting permission for using the car for five days. In ‘heterodiegetic narration’ it is revealed that Julio’s sister will then use the car for three weeks so that she and her friends can deliver food, clothing and medicine to a distant town named Chiapas. This shows how disconnected the pair are with the lives of everyday Mexicans, of how at this point are only concerned with their (hopefully) sex filled road trip never allowing the sorrows of others to intrude upon their happiness. Cuarón takes care with his camera to reveal to the audience the ‘other Mexico’ through which the boys are a part of, but which most of the time, they fail to properly see. The journey undertaken by the boys is from cosmopolitan Mexico City, south west towards the Pacific coast of Oaxaca. This is a movement from urban to rural, from sophisticated to ‘simple’, from rich to poor and from European to Amerindian. The film shows the two boys to be almost oblivious to the changing environment, but the camera and the voiceovers mean that the audience is constantly invited to notice the discrepancy between the rich boys’ internal world and the realities outside. During the first day of the journey, we see the picturesque Mexican countryside, intercepted with shots of the trio discussing their lives. This again shows the difference between the urban youngsters and the rural countryside folk. An example of Cuaron’s fine camera work is when he frames the trio in the car from a wide angle. The central three characters are in the frame together inside the car for long periods. Organizing this when they are driving in the car is quite difficult and sometimes requires the distorting wide angle lens. If it is not peering into the car, the camera is often showing the car in long shot, from in front or behind on the road itself or at an angle from the road. Alternatively, the camera looks out of the car windows at the countryside passing by. It is the shifting balance between these kinds of shots which slowly begins to show the audience more about the conditions of the local people. When the trio arrive in a small town to spend the night the camera peers from within at the streets outside. We see the condition of the locals, who still use animals for the transport of goods, who dwell in single level housings and whose economic conditions are poor. This contrasts starkly with the urban scenes at the begining of the film. Nowhere in the movie can one see more clearly of how the economic progress of the urban dwellers has failed to percolate down to the rural areas. The voiceover further informs us about Julio and Tenoch and their attitude towards each other. The dividing element of class and race is present, neither Tenoch nor Julio feeling really comfortable in the others home when in private. So on the screen we see the urban/rural divide while at the same time we hear about the upper/lower class divide. The camera is mostly focusing on the trio, but there are several instances, often in conjunction with the voiceover, when it manages to capture what is happening at the edges of the frame, or just out of the frame in which the boys are appearing. The best example of this is in the scene when the trio are about to order food, the camera leaves the party and follows one of the family that runs the hotel into a back room. Effectively Cuaron manages to show what happens beyond the lives of the trio and their journey. He shows us what the trio are not concerned with, what they ignore in pursuit of their own pleasure. The camera follows the member at a leisurely pace taking time to pause at her various family members who are continuing with their daily lives. A second example comes a little later when a discussion about sex in the car is undercut when the camera peers out of the car window to notice a pick-up truck carrying two armed police overtaking. Further on down the road the camera again peers out of the car, ignoring the trio who are too engrossed to notice a shot of the armed police who seem to be arresting a group of farmers selling their produce at the roadside. There are several other examples of the repression carried out by police at roadblocks and other instances, all of which are passed without a sideways glance by the boys in the car. At the first night in the hotel the boys spy on Luisa through a broken window pane which is captured beautifully by Lubezki’s camera. The journey resumes with the trio still continuing their sexual discussions with the visuals of the desolate Mexican countryside. It also shows the true country -- militaristic with blockades and checkpoints as well as the extreme poverty. In what is the quite possibly the best example of the heterodiegetic narration technique, the narrator informs us about a shrine by the side of the road which marks an accident that happened years ago. The camera leaves the trio and focuses on the shrine which the boys have ignored, showing the lack of concern the boys have for anything else(including the past) apart from their own lives. At the place where the car breaks down we see the simplistic life of the everyday Mexican – the ingenuous Mexican who has still not felt the effects of Mexico’s globalization. Luisa breaks up with her husband over the phone. Instead of focusing on her speaking into the phone, we are shown the emptiness of the apartment as she leaves her message in voiceover on the answering machine.  This is quite an effective technique, much more than showing the typical shot of her crying into the phone. Luisa though hurt is not scornful despite the fact that she will never sees him again. Cuaron shows us the world Luisa has left behind severing the ties she has with the past and the modern world(city life) completely. The drama reaches a critical point -- when Luisa in her sorrow, one day has sex with Tenoch. This act upsets the trio’s harmony as Julio watches from the doorway and becomes jealous and in an attempt to strike back at Tenoch he tells him that he slept with Tenoch’s girlfriend. The next day noticing that the boys are angry at each other, Luisa decides to rectify the situation by having sex with Julio in the car.  Tenoch is now beset with jealousy, acting childlike and immature reveals that he too has crossed the line, sleeping with Julio’s girlfriend. This explanation of the plot is critical to the scene that follows.  What happens next is a wild exchange between Tenoch and Julio in which the most telling dialogue is where Tenoch after Julio spits at him, calls him a peasant.  Lubezki’s camera is inside the car capturing the moment of Julio’s anger as he spits on the glass. Tenoch refuses to get on his knees to beg forgiveness as Julio had done previously for his transgression.  This reeks of elitism and is another reference to the deep social divide between the two youngsters. Tenoch is privileged and deep down feels superior to darker working class, Julio. While the trio resumes their journey and the conversation, the camera visuals show military blockades and the poverty of the countryside. PART III- THE BEACH Although the trio are angry at each other, they somehow end up accidentally finding an empty beach.  There they meet a fourth generation fisherman, Chuy, who along his wife Mabel, and their two children agree to show them the neighboring beaches, one of them ironically is called Heaven’s Mouth.  A football match between the boys is shown as a symbol of their anger against each other. Chuy brings the boys back again perhaps as an indication of how the locals can bring a harmony between the classes of Mexico. Chuy gives us a glimpse into the common Mexican, the Mestizo or indigenous man that is not of the city.  He is the man that constructs Mexico in the same manner that the small town Midwesterner, not the New Yorker or Californian creates the pulse of The US. In what is the final scene of the four together, the trio take a boat trip with Chuy who shows them a beach called ‘Heaven’s mouth’. The narrator informs us that at the end of the year, Chuy and his family will have to leave their home to make way for the construction of a hotel. Two years later he’ll end up as a janitor at the hotel and will never fish again. In many ways the change in Chuy’s fortune represents the fortunes of Mexico. Chuy’s bleak representation is poignant, for he is simply washed away – obsolete like a shadow of the Mexico that once was. His way of life is forever changed by capitalism, forcing him to become a tiny cog in a very big machine (an uneducated worker, similar to the migrant that was killed in the beginning), who in order to feed his family will take on a janitor job in a hotel, working in an enclosed atmosphere as opposed to the fisherman he was. The next scene moves to the beach bungalow were Julio, Tenoch, and Luisa have a sexual threesome as a culmination of their sexual desires and the heavy drinking. Upon waking everything has changed between the boys. The closeness of them which represents the coming together of the classes has been lost. In a significant scene Tenoch vomits outside the bungalow which is a representation of the disgust the upper class feels due to a moment of closeness with the middle class. PART IV- BACK TO THE CITY   The final scene follows a chance encounter between the two boys a year later, in 2000, the first year that the Institutional Revolutionary Party lost the election in 71 years. There is certain awkwardness between them which is characterized by the way the scene is portrayed. Cuaron keeps the camera positioned at a certain distance amplifying the emotional distance between the duo. In this final scene at which the narrator tells us that the duo will never meet again, Cuaron uses a long shot to portray the divide that will forever exist between Julio and Tenoch. In essence, Mexico will always remain divided by the continuing class division. Conclusion There can be no Mexico without Julio and Tenoch, the darker and lighter brother, symbolizing the ruling class and the lower classes. Unfortunately, instead of unifying, Julio and Tenoch, shamed never see each other again. Even though globalization of the country becomes greater and greater, the underlying class and race struggle will never be resolved, not due to the difference that exists but due to their unwillingness to come together. Cuaron and Lubezki’s cinematography bring out the social and political conditions that plague Mexico and make this beautiful narrative film into a thoughtful social and political commentary. Works Cited 1. Kemet, Mateen, O "Y Tu Mama tambien: An examination of race and class in modern Mexico." Runawayfilmworx 02 June 2005 Web 4 December 2009 2. Venicelion "Y tu mamá también" Itpworld.wordpress 24 August 2009 Web 4 December 2009. 3. Kagaoan, Kaye “Y Tu Mama Tambien” Filmfork.wordpress August 30, 2009 Web 5 December 2009. 4. Purdue OWL. "MLA Formatting and Style Guide." The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab, 10 May 2008. Web. 15 Nov. 2008. Read More