After first seeing "Y Tu Mama Tambien," something about it was knawing at me. I suspected there was a level of meaning I hadn't grasped immediately. There were too many hints that this wasn't just -- "two guys and a girl go to the beach and get laid." After several uncomfortable days, an allegorical dimension appeared, which hadn't been appreciated by other viewers I talked to, nor any of the published reviews I've seen. This level of interpretation may seem like a bit of a stretch, but there is strong evidence within the film to support it. If you've not seen it already, I'd strongly urge you to do that, and ponder it for a while, before reading this analysis. Comments below also reveal plot turns that could spoil your own experience of the movie; see it first.
Many reviews have fully worked over the film's superficial levels. It surely can be seen as a "daringly sexual romp," an "adolescent road-trip," an "erotic comedy." Others, taking the film a little more seriously, see the two teenage boys, Tenoch and Julio, thinking they're on a casual joy-ride, actually undergoing a serious, maturing journey as they confront some painful realities of life and death. All along their trip, there are background depictions of stark, often shocking social injustice, death, and violence; and some reviews see there's more than a hint of social commentary.
Roger Ebert saw a little deeper; from his 2002 review in Chicago Sun Times: "Y Tu Mama Tambien" is described on its Web site as a "teen drama," which is like describing "Moulin Rouge" as a musical. The description is technically true but sidesteps all of the reasons to see the movie. Yes, it's about two teenage boys and an impulsive journey with an older woman that involves sexual discoveries. But it is also about the two Mexicos. And it is about the fragility of life and the finality of death. Beneath the carefree road movie that the movie is happy to advertise, is a more serious level -- and below that, a dead serious level."
Ebert is deliberately, non-spoilingly, elliptical, but presumably his "dead serious level" refers to the fatal disease that the "older" (but still very sexy) Luisa, carries within -- unseen during the road-trip, but in retrospect explaining much of her unusual behavior. But there's a still more obscure, and more important significance to these characters and what happens to them.
The people of Mexico are a hybrid of meso-American natives, Caribbean/African imports, and Spanish colonizers. While the bulk of the population (mestizos) is a mix of all 3, there are strains of Indian and of Spanish descendants that keep their own identity, considering themselves superior to the others. The (more or less) white Spanish descendants form the country's elite, and control most of the wealth and power. Both of the teen boys we follow through the film belong to this upper crust. Julio is a middle class 17-18 yr old, just out of high school; abandoned by his father, his mother works, but they live well, and he associates with much richer friends. His girlfriend's mother is a Lacanian psychotherapist. His best friend, Tenoch, is the son of a wealthy, corrupt politician, and lives in a luxurious mansion. His Aztec name is bogus, given to him to bolster one of his father's election campaigns.
The boys are out of school, girlfriends have gone to Europe for the summer, and they have nothing to do but play. They smoke weed, mess around at Tenoch's house, fantasize about movie stars while they jerk off. They're not bad guys, we like them; but they do no useful work, have no serious interests or aims; they're just jerk-offs. As the story follows these two priviledged, immature boys moving toward maturity and a modern life, it's showing where "progress" is concentrated in today's Mexico -- the middle and upper class, largely white, Spanish descended, holders of power and priviledge. Tenoch's bogus native name could signify that lower class mestizos and Indians are given only lip service by politicians and those that profess to honor and promote the full Mexican cultural heritage. In fact, the workers and indigenous people seen in most every scene's background, still lead backward, oppressed lives.
The two fun seekers go to a lavish wedding celebration at a bullring, full of Mexico's elite -- rich, pompous ignoramuses. The entertainment is high-end Mexican -- kitchy mariachis, glittery cowboys in wide-brimmed hats riding horses in the ring -- a celebration of Mexican "culture." But to most of us it's just laughably silly showmanship. The boys meet Luisa, who's about 10 yrs older, married (unhappily, we gather) to a distant relative of Tenoch's. She's attractive, and game for fun, but turns down their invitation to go on a car trip to a remote, fantastic (actually imaginary) beach they claim to know about. After a traumatic break-up with her husband, and a cryptic visit to a medical clinic, Luisa agrees to go on their beach adventure a few days later. We see a book of Yeats poetry at her bedside.
On their long drive to the (alleged) beach, Luisa tells of lost loves and life's difficulties. The boisterous boys make extravagant claims about themselves, but they're totally delusional. They claim to be skilled, considerate lovers, but when Luisa seduces first one and then, the next day, the other, they are both pathetically inept. They imagine themselves to be "astral cowboys" -- "Charrolastro's" -- and tell Luisa about their Charrolastro principles of life -- their Manifesto. We then learn they have violated every principle of it that involves any self-control. Their pledge of loyalty was a sham. But after some jealous spats, they make up and continue their trip. For all their lack of integrity, the boys are too innocent of malice for them to hold lasting grudges against each other. Isn't it interesting that when a movie character looks nice and smiles a lot, we want to like them, ignoring whatever character flaws we might learn about?
To the extent that an allegorical reading of the film is valid, Tenoch and Julio can be taken as surrogates for the Mexican national character, at least its elite leading edge. The filmmakers seem to be saying that behind the macho bluster, there is very little integrity; the Mexican character, still in formation, is yet very immature, and delusional about its own merits. But, the Cuarón brothers still love these people for their animal vitality; there's a richness and beauty here, in Luisa's words, as it "breathes full of life."
Along the road to the coast, in the background, we see vignettes of life among the common people, and it's not a pretty sight. One after another fleeting roadside tableau shows us a society that is deeply corrupt: aggressive "religious" beggars, violent accidental death, ruined buildings and machinery, peasants being cruelly treated by soldiers. Some backdrop for a youthful joy-ride!
When they arrive at the coast, it eventually becomes clear that the two lads had no idea where they were going -- the reputed "Heaven's Mouth" beach was a fraud. Then, exhausted and frustrated, they accidentally find themselves on a remote, idyllic sandy beach, exactly what they had imagined. Camping there, they meet Chuy, a local traditional fisherman and his family, who welcome and feed the trio; they hear Chuy's prediction that soon the family's simple way of life will be overrun by commercialistic development. On returning to the beach camp, the forces of greed have already struck -- they discover pigs have overrun and trashed everything. Their camp destroyed, they pick up and head to a beachside bar and hotel, where they eat and drink, and enthuse about the wonderful Mexican life-force. As they become more drunk, their exchanges become ever more lewd and crude; finally they retire to their cabaña for a night of animalistic wallowing. In the morning, burnt-out, hung-over, they return home separately.
When we see them again, a year later as they meet for coffee, the voice-over narration tells us the boys have not seen each other since parting on the beach. They are now in college, preparing for professional careers, looking much more mature. One has heard that Luisa has died of widespread cancer. We recall at this point Luisa's cryptic medical visit just before she went on the road-trip. She knew she was dying, the boys realize. Neither expresses much grief.
Tenoch and Julio are on their way -- into the future of modernising Mexico; they will become materialistic technocrats, academics, businessmen. The common folk still lag far behind; but eventually progress will sweep them up, and this progress will destroy the traditional folk culture. Unlike the two boys, the Cuaróns feel this loss; something beautiful is dying. They can't help sentimentally clinging to Mexico's breathing vitality, its earthy traditions; at the same time, they see clearly that, like Luisa, the mother country, superficially lusty and lively, is rotten to the core, as it's eaten from inside by cancer: the violence, corruption, social injustice, bogus machismo, and religious hypocrisy they showed us as backdrops to virtually every scene of the film. A fundamental dishonesty pervades this culture, hence its dying leaves them with severely mixed emotions.
If you think this allegorical reading of the film goes too far, recall two details mentioned above. Julio's girlfriend's mother is a Lacanian therapist. Meaningless tidbit? No. Lacan's distinctive Marxist twist on psychoanalysis was to read a political dimension into every psychological disturbance; an individual's pathology could not be separated from the context of social pathology within which it arose. Clearly, political symbolism permeates this film. Second, the book of Yeats' poetry by Luisa's bed provides a rather strong hint of metaphorical content -- the need to read the film, like a poem, at multiple levels. And Yeats is particularly apt here, when we recall that one of his recurrent themes was the loss of simple peasant traditions under the crush of mechanistic civilization. "Y Tu Mama Tambien" is undoubtedly a very carefully and artfully constructed work, with deeply critical insight into Mexican culture as it transitions into modernity.
[I'm puzzled that the published reviews, at least those I've seen, either ignored or lightly glossed over the deeper social-political level of interpretation. Some noted "social commentary" being obliquely made by what's occurring in the background of various scenes, but none appreciated the symbolic significance of the characters, Luisa's disease ... all the narrative details discussed above. Please email me if you find any other writing about the film's slightly hidden, but powerfully critical message. Or if you have reason to believe this allegorical interpretation is over-reaching.]
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