HTF REVIEW: "Y tu mamá también" (unrated) (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED) (with screenshots) (1 Viewer)

[JosephMoore]

If this exact same script had been produced as an english language movie starring Ryan Philipe and some other WB brats it would have been panned as a step above Cinemax tripe.

You missed a lot of nuances in the film, that's a shame.

Yeah, the subtlety of a shot of semen in a pool went right by me!

 

[JosephMoore]

One kid is ultra-rich and one kid is middle-class (by Mexican standards.) They both have enough affluence to waste away the summer doing drugs and screwing a cousin while their girlfriends are touring Europe. You wouldn't call that privledged?

Exactly what story plays out? "Wah, wah. You f***ed her first. Wah, wah I f***ed your girlfriend. Well I f***ed your girlfriend, too. Oh boys, lets all make-up and f***." Brilliant stuff. I Laughed, I Cried, The Feel Good Hit of The Summer! ;-)

 

[Rich Malloy]

The socioeconomic differences of the two main characters - a primary thread of the film - certainly did go right by you. And I'd hardly call that a nuance.

 

[Mark Lehmkuhl]

A few good moments, but overall a mediocre film. Where was the eroticism? Wham, bam, thank you m'am, high school boys trying to avoid premature ejaculation - no thanks.

If thats erotic...

 

[Rich Malloy]

The point is that it captures something real about youth, lust, death, and the insane belief that one can transcend them all. The fact that the extreme sexual potency of Julio and Tenoch turns them both into Quick-draw McGraw is more than just a running joke... it's an honest account of youthful lust.

And Luisa's tenderness over this is nearly overcome by her own frustration, but of course it's only the smallest aspect of her journey. We understand from the beginning that there's more at stake for her, for having left her husband and for embarking on the very kind of ridiculous journey that require a youthful foolishness to undertake. We understand that her lust is driven by much the same forces as that of the boys, but we don't yet know to what extent. Just as the boys are attempting the impossible, in their case the staving off adulthood, the brief denial of the ultimate acceptance of the social roles that will soon separate them by flinging themselves into a search for the ultimate joy, the ultimate sex, the ultimate beach, the ultimate good time, so too is Luisa. And this, her final fling, her reconciliation with her own youthfulness and a recapturing of the very joys of life is also flung against her own mortality, against the death sentence she's just received. It's both poignantly desperate and tragically beautiful.

She knows better than the rest of them. She sees all their futures. And though her vision is the only prescient one, her decision to search for Heaven's Mouth the only considered one, it's precisely the youthful vigor and obliviousness of Tenoch and Julio that she seeks and which drives them all.

Charlie Taylor writes: "I'd like to suggest that the movie's unabashed impulse toward life is a sort of praise-giving. 'In every poem by Matisse,' Henry Miller wrote in Tropic of Cancer, 'there is the history of a particle of human flesh which refused the consummation of death.' Y Tu Mamá También realizes that the deepest prayers come from that refusal."

 

[JosephMoore]

Obviously, this film strikes a chord with a large audience. It's certainly not a "bad" movie. If you enjoy it, great. But comparing it (even indirectly) to Matisse? That kind of hyperbole is what inflated my expectations and probably ruined it for me.

I personally think it's getting much of it's hype simply because it's not a Hollywood production. Is it possible that much of "between the lines" pontificating is a product of the reviewer's desire for the film to be great, not what is actually recorded on the celluloid?

 

[Ted Todorov]

Quote:

What distinguishes this film from Hollywood are not the sex scenes -- the film as a whole is raw and unvarnished and I defy anyone to name a Hollywood product than can compare.
If you are just looking for (non-hardcore) sex scene that is way more erotic than anything Hollywood can hope to produce check out the one in Late Marriage. But I'll warn you right now, Late Marriage is considerably less "mainstream" and more "difficult" than Y Tu Mama Tambien.
Ted

 

[Rich Malloy]

Obviously, this film strikes a chord with a large audience. It's certainly not a "bad" movie. If you enjoy it, great. But comparing it (even indirectly) to Matisse? That kind of hyperbole is what inflated my expectations and probably ruined it for me.

I very often miss someone's point by reading it too fast, or not paying close enough attention, or listening with preconcieved notions regarding the gist of what I expect to hear.

In short, you missed the point of Taylor's quote. It's not that Cauron is the equal of Matisse (or Miller), nor that his film is the equal of the greatest of these artist's works. Rather, it's that the animating factor in the work of both these artists is also that which animates "Y Tu Mama Tambien". If you disagree with this notion - something I tried to establish in a few short paragraphs above - then challenge the notion. But I certainly don't believe Charlie Tayler engaged in hyperbole on this point, just as I don't believe I did by quoting him. I merely find the notion to be precisely on-point.

And the idea that "heightened expectations ruined the film for you" strikes me as a questionable basis upon which to determine the merits of anything. Correct me if I misunderstand, but you're saying that the film would be a better one not for doing something more and not for being something different, but rather only had it not been spoken of so highly? I've heard this said before regarding "the hype", and I understand very well the debilitating nature of preconceptions upon one's ability to perceive, but it seems a rather flimsy rationale for your complete dismissal of this film, or for that matter anthing else that might similarly suffer in your eyes from being too well-lauded.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, of course, but if your primary criticism of the film is solely concerned with things external to it, then you simply haven't given it a fair shake. I can't convince you to like it, of course, but perhaps you'll engage it on its own merits (or lack of same)?

 

[JosephMoore]

Rich,
Intelligent debate is fun ... I hope that you're taking this in the spirit offered because I certainly enjoy it.

I guess that my strong anti-opinion about this movie, and critic's reaction to it, is growing based on the fact that if one doesn't like it, the implied reaction is that one doesn't "get it."

I found the entire precept for the story flimsy. I could never suspend my disbelief that Luisa would "hook-up" with these two losers. While the basic themes may be interesting, I felt that they were so awkwardly presented, so contrived, as to be completely wasted.

IMHO, we're so bombarded with crap from Hollywood that we salivatie over otherwise mediocre films just because they come from outside the system.

I also watched "Brotherhood of the Wolf" this past weekend and was similarly dissapointed. I'm not comparing the two films in any way other than to say I think that it too is over-hyped simply because it is French in origin.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Definitely enjoying the discussion, Joseph, and hope I haven't come across as completely overbearing (I have these tendencies...)
But I disagree with your assessment of Julio and Tenoch as "two losers". God, do I envy them, their youth, vigor and lust. At that age, I was sorta like them, but more inhibited, less confident and less eager to follow my whims until such a time when I no longer had the luxury of following them. I do recall that last gasp of youth, and I was sufficiently aware of it's imminent passing to savor it. But it seems that one never quite savors it thoroughly enough. I regret not following my heart once or twice more, not going on one more lark and frolic, not drinking in yet one more drop of life before adulthood stole the ultimate freedom of youth, the freedom to be stupid and irresponsible, to give free reign to the rapaciousness of our appetites. I won't condemn anyone for enjoying the fullness of youth, of discovery, of the insatiability of all needs, much less consider them losers for doing so. To have that all back, just once more... as they say, "youth is wasted on the young". All too often.
And so when you talk of your surprise that Luisa would "hook up with these losers", I find myself in a far different universe, approaching this from a fundamentally different perspective. I'd do just as she did... if I had the courage. If my circumstances were such that my whiny and pretentious spouse had just called me, bawling into the phone about betraying me with another. If I'd just been told that I have an incurable disease and my life was not long on this earth. If I found myself where Luisa found herself, I'd certainly hope I'd have the courage to savor those last drops of life before expiring, indeed to live, and live to the fullest, which is all one can ever hope to do and all that one will ever regret not doing.
Which is why Miller's quote about Matisse rang so true for me in relation to this film: "[Within it] is the history of a particle of human flesh which refused the consummation of death." That's the joy I find in this film. It's why I love it. It's why I love Julio and Tenoch and Luisa. And, hopefully without hyperbolizing this all out of proportion, it's why I love life itself.

 

[JosephMoore]

We could go back and forth ad naseum, probably, because there is no "right" or "wrong" opinion. It's always curious how much an individual's experiences color how they experience the same piece of "art."
It seems to me that you're projecting a lot more into this picture than it is projecting onto the screen. Either that or I'm just a cold-hearted American who'd rather watch things be blown-up, Dolby Digital 5.1 blaring away!

 

[Roberto Carlo]

If I may add my .02: Watching the film, especially the first 30 minutes or so, I was struck by how little Tenoch and Julio had in common and how, in real life, a mestizo working class kid and a white child of privilege would probably never meet, much less become fast friends. Add their last names-- Iturbide and Zapata -- and I saw it as a parable about the vast divides in Mexican society. Giving Tenoch that first name -- as the narrator said, it was in a fit of nationalist fervor -- only made his family seem more remote from the life of the average Mexican.

Luisa, whose last name, BTW, was "Cortes" -- Get it?-- was the outsider looking in on the uneasy relationship.

One last thing: Remember when Julio admitted to screwing Tenoch's mother -- the "y tu mama tambien" of the title -- near the end? The great book about the Mexican, particularly mestizo, experience of injustice, starting with the coming of people who looked like Tenoch, is called "La [Madre] Chingada," the "F****ed Mother" by Octavio Paz.

Thus, at the end when they had nothing to say to each other and went their separate ways forever, the parable was complete.

Like I said, my .02

 

[Patrick Sun]

What makes this film special is how the writer/director sets up the intersection and timing of 2 boys on the cusp of adulthood, still seeing the world through child-like eyes (and an overabundance of hormones), and then meeting their wet dream in the flesh, but it's solely due to her own crossroads in her life. Timing, as they say, is everything. This is what drives the narrative in this film, and it what sets it apart from the "generic" sexy road trip film because there is something that resonates in most people's hearts once we find out about Luisa's plight, the film takes on an even larger sense of the human condition and on how one embraces the absurdity of life, be it from youthful exhuberance, or from the minefield of experience, to give it some meaning and context with the time we have here and the people we share it with.

 

[JosephMoore]

I wonder why the "Felicity: The Complete First Season" review hasn't generated this kind of discourse? ;-)

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Everything I need to say about this film has already been said in this thread. Bottom line: One of this year's best films.
By the way, Gael Garcia Bernal can be seen in Carlos Carrera's El Crimen Del Padre Amaro (The Crime of Father Almaro), which has now become one of the top grossing Mexican films in Mexico and has drawn another wave of critical acclaim.
~Edwin

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Another praise thread thwarted.
~Edwin

 

[Aurel Savin]

It seems to me that you're projecting a lot more into this picture than it is projecting onto the screen.

I cannot speak for Rich, but to me even a mega budget, mega star, huge action flick has things underneath its surface that is not visible on it's surface or "projected on the screen".
Someone once said, I believe it was a respected actor, that even the worst movie you have seen, usually has a few minutes of redeeming value. Something that you get out of it that might have been worth it sitting through .. even thought the overall picture was dissapointing.
Sometimes I believe, that directors and talent involved with real horrible productions think like this as well. It means something to them personally to justify it's creation. John Travolta and Battlefield Earth comes to mind

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Well, to stay timely, I'll put in my two cents here.
This is a film I would not have seen if not for HTF. I have bought too many films unseen (and regretted it), so I was pleased to see my BB carrying this. I sat down to check it out last night.
It slowly builds up to a stunningly simple conclusion, but the only possible one. In hindsight, the total is better than the sum of it's parts. It didn't connect with me as strongly as some here, but I can easily understand it's power.
As filmmaking goes, the handheld took a while to get used to, but really enhanced the story. It really is a lovely film to watch. It does have several layers, not all of which I tapped into, as I was forced to use the subtitles. But the themes found their way through. The acting was really top-notch from the three leads. And they were NOT easy roles at all. Very powerful.
Much like experiences in life, Y Tu Mama Tambien reaches your heart and head AFTER the event is over. Hindsight gives it meaning, and shows you everything you missed when it happened.
Great movie. Highly recommended.
Take care,
Chuck

 

[Michael Caicedo]

A coming of age film, a travelogue of today's Mexico, a sly political satire (the wedding with more body guards than guests), an illustration of Mexico's class-stratified society, a meditation on the nature of friendship, a tragedy and a damn funny comedy.

Yes, yes yes. A brilliant film. Touched me on many levels most of which have been mentioned already by Ted, Rich and Patrick. I also loved the "texture" of the film-which is to say the people and places that inhabit this film, some of them commonly ignored or forgotten in latin american media. Powerful performances, all three main actors but especially by Gael Garcia. The (spanish language) dialog is even funnier and more raw than the subtitles allowed. One of he top three films for me so far this year.

 

[William-R]

this is a great movie i thought it was funny (passport sceen and while their in the mall) =)
great review =)