Review of Y Tu Mamá También (2001) by Mark D — 26 Jul 2014

This is the kind of film that brings both joy and thought to the audience. This is the kind of film that needs, and deserves, to be watched with care, and re-watched for a second thought. At first glance, this is a film in the form of a simple "road movie", in which the two coming-of-age boys discover the real meaning of life, and sex, with a mature and sorrowful woman with a colourful background of people, places, activities representing the essence of Mexico.

But the film is much, much more than that - as beautiful and diverse the Mexican landscape and life is in the background, as cheerful and carefree the boys (and partly the woman) seem to be, the film hides under those layers a sincere and caring depiction of a Mexico in transition, where conflicts and tensions are everywhere (mostly between the upper class and the poor, I guess), and also the confusion and loss of the coming-up-age boys at the real gate of their "adult" life, a life that is not only about sex but also about finding the true meaning of "living", about the eternal parallel existence of both smiles and tears - just as the "reflected shot" of one side the boys cheerfully playing table football and the other side Luisa tearfully saying "adios" to her husband.

As such, the seemingly nonsense quest looking for the "Heaven's Mouth" is actually a struggling search for "real life" of the two boys guided by the heart-breathtakingly beautiful Luisa Cortes, whose beauty is actually the best symbol for "life".

Perfectly complementing the moving story is the superb cinematography that is full of ingenious single shots (a signature of Alfonso Cuaron and his close collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki, which was later pushed to another level in "Children of Men") and, more importantly, many wide-angle takes that capture the raw and exotic beauty of Mexico at its finest.

Still, the thing about this film that will stay for a long time in the audience's mind, in my opinion, is its story about the young and conflicting Mexico, as well as the two boys that might have been lost forever, just as their beautiful but empty look, without Luisa - the woman of their life, literally.