In  which Stephanie Reviews a Film from Notmerica

Mexico’s

Y Tu Mamá También

(WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SPOILERS ALMOST IMMEDIATELY)

When I started telling people I was writing an article on this movie, their reactions ranged from, “Wow, that’s a really great movie!” to “Hey! That was the first movie I ever jacked off to.” It has quite a reputation.

Simply put, this 2001 movie is about sexual desire, and what makes it so fascinating is the depth at which it explores this subject. The driving force in this movie is the main character, Luisa, played by Ana López Mercado, who after finding out she is terminally ill leaves behind a philandering husband to go on a trip to a beach called La Boca de Cielo (the mouth of Heaven) with a couple of horny teenagers, Tenoch and Julio (played by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna.) Against the backdrop of a country being rocked by drug cartels and political corruption, the trio find themselves in all kinds of complicated emotional and sexual entanglements.
Now, sexual desire has been the subject of study for many disciplines, but one of particular interest to this movie is the psychoanalytic approach. The father of psychoanalysis was Sigmund Freud, and he theorized that everyone’s personality was driven by three forces. The first one, the one we are all born with, is called the id. The id is the basis for all carnal desire–all it wants to do is fuck, fight, and eat. The second component of personality is called the superego. This forms as a result of socialization: learning how to behave according to what is expected of you. It is concerned with cultural mores and fitting in. The third and final component of the personality is the ego. This is the middle man that who weighs the influences of the other two forces and makes all the decisions. This is the part of you that is concerned with morality.

Yeah, something like that.

Sex and sexual desire are/is what happens when the superego gets lost in traffic and never shows, and the id, the thing concerned with getting the most basic of needs fulfilled, has complete control.
This film is brought to us by our neighbors and exporter of the taco, Mexico.

Dia del los Muertos inspired art has become quite kitschy in the US. Every damn day I see a different white girl post a picture on Facebook of her sugar skull makeup.

A film from a country obsessed with death has one very important thing to say about it: death is more closely related to sex than it is to life. It seems only fitting, since sex is the creation of life while death is the expiration of it. Life is just what happens between fucking and dying.
So we can easily liken what “life” means with the superego, that thing that is concerned with all things social like caring about art, planning for a career and having a 401k. Tenoch and Julio are seemingly ruled by their libidos. They are constantly bragging about their sexual prowess and code of honor that their friendship is built on. But as the audience watches the two during sex, their performances, well, leave a lot to be desired. Also, sexual desire leads both of these guys to break one of their golden rules: no sleeping with a friend’s girlfriend. This reveals all that bravado is nothing more than a hollow construct, a means of fitting in. In evolutionary terms, fitting in is also know as the survival of the fittest, because what is life’s most basic definition if not just the ability to survive? They represent the perpetual motion machine that is life. It is something that when challenged, easily falls apart. Sex is the crucible that proves the metal of these constructs is no good. This means that in order to survive, people sometimes have to deny what they really desire, but that ultimately, that never works.

Like I said, it never works.

So if the superego is concerned with life, we can reasonably say that the id is more concerned about death. The audience doesn’t know that Luisa is dying until 3 minutes before the film ends, after she is already gone. But by then it’s a foregone conclusion because we see her grapple with her mortality throughout the entire film. When she learns of her imminent doom it frees her from everything her superego wants– stability, to someday travel, for her husband to stop cheating on her–none of it matters anymore. All that matters is the id’s burning need to satiate desires because even from the minute you are born, the id knows it is on a mortal coil and gonna die. And that kind of fire is attractive, and Luisa is seductive in her freedom. In one of the final scenes of the movie, director Alfonso Cuarón has Luisa look straight into and dance toward the camera. It’s the moment where Luisa becomes desire incarnate, breaking the fourth wall and challenging you the viewer to just give in scratch that itch; life is temporary, after all.

“Come on, no one’s looking.”

This is why sex is so awkward between strangers, yet at the same time fosters intimacy. During sex, all that learned behavior about right and wrong just melts away and you are your truest, most basic self. Tenoch and Julio’s friendship couldn’t survive the intimacy of the most honest moment of their friendship that happens during the ménage à trois  scene, something the entire movie builds up to, when they share an tender, emotional kiss before the camera fades away what happens next is left up to the audiences’ imaginations. Life goes on, and the survival mode flip gets switched. The friendship can no longer survive once the forbidden fruit gets tasted.
An absolutely fantastic and complex movie. I loved, loved loved it. Watch it with a loved one. Not your mom. I don’t care what the title suggests. NOT YOUR MOM!!!
Next Week: Sweden’s Let the Right One In.
XOXO,
Stephanie Rose