Y Tu Mamá También
When a director is really thrust into the limelight as Alfonso Cuarón has been, it can be easy to forget that their early work is often some of their best. Don’t get me wrong, I love Children of Men and seeing Gravity in the IMAX labored me with a kind of space-age agoraphobia that took weeks to recede but I would still argue that Y Tu Mamá También remains his best film. As a premise it appears deceptively simple, two bored teens, lost and horny without their girlfriends around set off on a pilgrimage to a distant beach. At the last minute a married woman they met at a family function decides to tag along, having caught her husband cheating. What follows is a road movie rippling with sexual overtones and troubling notions about youth.
It’s so much more than the sum of its parts though. Throughout the film a Werner Herzog style narration interplays with the action and provides a glaring, harsh commentary on the poverty that constricts much of Mexico. Y Tu Mamá También is almost an antithesis to the American road movie; it has none of the spiritual wanderlust of Easy Rider or Searchers and whilst there is an appreciation for the beauty of the landscape (particularly at the end), themes of struggle, decline and death preside over every frame. Y Tu Mamá También has all the depth and significance of a great novel, wistfully recounting the naivety of youth, level-headedly facing up to the specter of death and outlining the wounds of a nation blighted by destitution all in a 106 minute stretch of gorgeous, essential film-making. There’s also a ridiculous amount of shagging in it, make of that what you will.
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