Y Tu Mamá También

Y Tu Mamá También (2001) illustrates better than almost any film of recent years the continuing relevance of the French new wave, its energy and its breezy formal daring to filmmakers around the world. In this case, Mexico’s Alfonso Cuarón, one of the outstanding lights in today’s international cinema. The film charts the road trip of teenage friends Diego Luna and Gael Garcia Bernal with older Spanish expatriate Maribel Verdu, and the triangle that ensues. With a narrative reminiscent of Jules et Jim, an endlessly roving camera and an omniscient narrator sketching in the copious background details, ranging freely through the lives of the main characters and sidelong participants alike, the film engages, particularly with the spirit of Francois Truffaut. Yet it avoids mere pastiche thanks to the joyousness of the performances, the cheerful sexual frankness and the vivid sketching of the socio-political landscape. Of course, the film is about Mexico today in the way that the early works of Godard, Truffaut and Rivette stood for the France of the late ’50s/early ’60s. In its vibrantly unassuming way though, Y Tu Mamá También is as powerful a vision of contemporary life as Cuarón’s most recent movie, the magisterial Children of Men. Now for the bad news: this new DVD repackaging of the film isn’t remotely worth buying, not because of the lack of any extras except for the trailer, not even because the widescreen viewing option refused to work, but because this is the Wal-Mart friendly R cut of the film, which completely excises the climactic gay kiss, making nonsense out of the movie’s finale.