How does Cuaron structure the narrative of Y tu mamá también for effect?
- Spectatorship, genre conventions, and narrative theory
Y tu mamá también is an independent film and therefore Cuaron structures the narrative unconventionally, subverting the spectator from the traditional Todorovian 3-Act structure, using the characteristics of indie filmmaking to raise socio-political issues to the spectator; this makes the storyline less escapist than studio films and more realistic, often utilising documentary-style cinematography to capture varied, original, and improvisational performances. In terms of genre, the film employs the 'road movie', wherein the characters experience an individual journey from the altered perspective of their everyday lives; in Y tu mamá también, the boys, Tenoch and Julio, offer the older, sexually attractive woman, Luisa, a road-trip to a (spontaneously invented) fictional beach called 'Heavens Mouth'. Despite the ways in which the film subverts narrative conventions, it does follow a chronological story with noticeable inciting incidents and points of climax (perhaps too many to allocate defining acts between them) to affect the spectator reminiscent of traditional narrative structures - the first being the start of the road trip to subsequent sexual encounters, arguments, and realisations the characters have about and with each other. Act 1 is important in establishing both the characters and Mexico's hierarchical socio-political statuses. Tenoch is from an upper-middle class family with relatives in Spain - shown during the wedding scene where he and Julio meet Luisa (from Madrid), the setting of a bull-fighting arena itself evoking Spanish pride. In contrast, Julio lives in a small apartment in an urbanised part of Mexico City with his single mother. Cuaron uses a long-take to highlight the racial divide of wealth later as the camera follows Tenoch's nanny walking from the kitchen to Tenoch watching TV in an expansive living room while he ignores the ringing phone next to him and his nanny giving him food - he, unlike Julio, is comfortable in being served by others. However, despite these displays of Spanish wealth, Tenoch has an Aztec name, explained by the voice-over that he was named while his politically involved father was 'affected by a sudden nationalism' the year he was born. Cuaron seems to suggest irony; Tenoch's name represents indigenous Mexico, yet his father works in a political system that has a history of oppressing the indigenous people; Tenoch is surrounded/brought up in heavy Spanish iconography, nationality, and prejudice (such as his distancing from any lack of wealth by using his foot to touch the toilet seats of lower-class people). Therefore, this establishment is important in constructing a realistic narrative for the spectator while subverting the conventions of traditional storytelling through the voice-over - a conventional aspect of independent filmmaking.
The road-movie genre of the film is used as the main narrative interest, however, Cuaron subverts the conventions of this genre in favour of realism. 'Heavens Mouth' functions as a realisation or place of transformation for the three characters, while the trip itself confronts the culturally (of Mexican Machismo culture) transgressive associations with homosexuality, a re-evaluation of masculinity, and associations with social/racial hierarchies of Mexico's (1990-2000s) politics, mostly through the boys' 'coming-of-age' journey. On the other hand, Luisa's (due to the narrative event of the revelation of her terminal illness and her cheating husband) journey takes on a different route as she uses the road trip as a form of therapy and self-discovery away from the constraints of her marriage and mortality; she is mostly used within the narrative as, in relation to Vladimir Propp's character functions, a 'helper' and 'donor' to the boys - she gives them the freedom to express and experience their homosexual desires during the end of the film once they have reached their symbolic destination, and her sexual maturity when she offers sex to them helps the boys to realise their naivety; these functions are only conscious to the spectator and Luisa, constructing Luisa's narrative functions to exist in order to catalyse the issues surrounding masculinity, class, politics, identity, and sexuality proposed during the film to the spectator. These issues are visited through both the non-diegetic omniscient voiceover and cinematography, which I will explore later. In contrast, the boys (and the spectator to some extent, by viewing her through a heterosexual male perspective) view Luisa as the archetypal 'Princess', who they seek to sexually conquer, so they intend the road trip for this perceived opportunity.
Coming back to road movie genre conventions, because Luisa is positioned to function as this helper/donor to the boys, the spectator expects a transformation to occur within them; (in subtext) their bisexuality should be fully realised and/or accepted, their macho expectations of masculinity should be re-evaluated, and their adulthood/future should be driven by their individual desires rather than familial intervention. Instead, the spectator is given an alternative, more realistic ending; they hurriedly reject their homosexual associations, with Tenoch vomiting after they both assumedly sleep together, therefore staying within their uncomfortably gendered masculinity, and they follow different paths into adulthood during the final scene, where Tenoch accepts his father's wishes for him to study economics, abandoning his passion for writing, and the two boys never meet again. At the same time, we are told that Luisa died from (the revealed) cancer. This ultimately concludes the film's realism, with the narrative structure rejecting the expected positive/ beneficial 'new equilibrium' in Todorov's theory. It is interesting to consider Luisa's function again during the final scene; when she was present in the boys' lives, a transformation was occurring within them, yet when she exits, they turn back to how their life would have been anyway despite her interference; they have entered a new equilibrium as their lives have changed since the road-trip, yet nothing about their individual character's have fundamentally altered even though they were confronted with culturally transgressive change - instead, they choose to reject it in favour of continuing their expected paths constructed by social/cultural normalities. The voice-over succinctly grounds the spectator in realism by revealing how 'going for a cup of coffee was easier than making excuses to avoid it' - a remark that goes against everything the audience has witnessed in their close-knit friendship and therefore come to expect from the genre - that road trips bring characters closer together, issues are resolved, or they part ways in order to pursue greater things; instead Tenoch and Julio repress their issues and find it easier to distance each other and thus their homosexual associations than confront them and develop as characters.
Cuaron uses two main ways to show socio-political issues and narrative context during the film. One is the use of the long-take. Even though the characters are constantly interacting with their environment which helps to establish the film's realism, the long-takes (usually in mid-shot) make us, the spectator, lose focus of the surroundings as the camera is placed with the actors on screen and the conversations/actions they have. It is also important to consider viewing it from a foreign perspective, so we are focused on reading the subtitles and the space above that is dominantly filled with the performers rather than any wider details in the mise-en-scene. Therefore, the second main way Cuaron gives the spectator narrative context and socio-political issues is through narration - an emotionless, omniscient voice-over to disrupt scenes with context and information about seemingly irrelevant issues, even though they are mostly always related to the characters onscreen. For example, while the three characters drive through a rural area, the voice-over appears to tell the audience of Tenoch's realisation of being in the place where his nanny came from, the place that she was forced to leave at the age of 13 in order to find work, interrupting the fun and relaxed atmosphere previously inhabited. Such information brings light to Mexico's racial divide of wealth, with poor rural communities being inhabited by largely indigenous-descended people, while the exampled displays of Spanish-descended people during act one inhabit the higher wealth in Mexico, owing to the country's history of European colonisation. This suggests a Levi-Strauss theory of binary opposites within the narrative; rich vs poor; although traditionally one is favoured over the other, Cuaron poses a neutral narration to illustrate Mexico's economic divides rather than typically framing a good vs bad perspective. Cuaron expands the narrative outside of the characters, with the voiceover offering in-depth details about side characters the boys and Luisa encounter on their journey. The difficult lives of these side characters - mostly of lower social/economic status - are strongly contrasted with the boys, framing their issues as immature and juvenile in compassion to Mexico's meta-narrative around them. As the camera wanders and the voice-over details, these tangents are only to serve the spectator, allowing them to develop a recognition of a wider people that differs from their own experience just as the characters do, with the narrative ultimately exploring identity and the wider narrative of Mexico as a developing socio-political nation at the turn of the 21st century.
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