In effect, it is common currency to admit that cinema and American cinema are synonymous, although there is always a place reserved for “otherness”: national cinemas, Bollywood, women´s cinema and so on. It is necessary to bear in mind that cinema is an art and also a business, and the control of the distribution by multinational film companies is often more important than the story itself. I have noticed that US productions are very different from Spanish, European or Latin American movies because of the capitalist system of production. In terms of form, US movies generally include handsome protagonists, happy endings and, since there is always a problematic situation that the main character has to solve, s a cause-effect relationship between events.  On the contrary, European and Latin American cinema embrace other characteristics: their protagonists are normal people, there are opened endings and nobody knows the incentive of the characters, thus there is no obvious cause-effect relationship.

In terms of content, US productions will adapt a novel if there is a really good version of it, a well studied plot in which everything is solved at the end, and all the characters fix their life problems. Regarding the representation of sexuality, American cinema inserts music, the scenes are usually at night and bodies are covered most of the time. All of these aspects function as a precursor of the sexual scene, however, in European and Latin American cinema, the sex is more explicit and you can see both characters naked. Additionaly, this cinema shows the sex scenes without preambles because these scenes are not usually just for pleasure, but exist as a political subject. In this way, sex is a metaphor of politics, which is why all the sex scenes in “Y a tu mamá también” hide a political issue described by the extra-diegetic voice-over. This narrator tells the “other” story, the Mexican one, which shows us the problems and concerns of the history of Mexico, like the strike in which Julio’s sister participates with other people representing the Zapatistas because of the signing of NAFTA in 1994. This situation is even more allegoric because Julio and his sister’s last name is Zapata. It overlaps with the story of Tenoch-a short name of Tenochtitlán, the capital of the expanding Mexican Empire in the 15^th century-Julio and Luisa Cortés, the Spanish girl–whose last name coincides with the conquer Hernán Cortés–and their trip to Boca del Cielo. The three protagonists continue their journey: meanwhile the Mexican national-historical memory emerge in a few seconds to make it visible to the audience and as a means of vindication. These seconds are enough to remind the audience of what politicians did in the past, like the police pressure on peasants or the reminder through painted signs of which states respect civil rights.

Cuarón proposes a cultural and historical model mixed with the story of the three protagonists who are, by the way, a continuum or extension of the main story, the historical one. The result of the scenes depicting sex and drugs is a sort of vindication of youth against what happened in the past. This style of life of Julio and Tenoch reminded me of the celebrated passage by Carlos Fuentes in The Death of Artemio Cruz in which the word “chingada” is repeated again and again throughout an entire page to express a summary of Mexican history. “Chingada” is a symbol and countersign of Mexico, as Fuentes states. This word also expresses–paraphrasing Fuentes’ passage– a project of life, a memory, the voice of the desperate people, the sign of the birthday, the freedom of poor people, command of powerful governors, threats and mockery, parties and drunkenness, race…and all Mexicans are part of this word that implies all of these connotations. However, the first meaning of “chingada” is the mythical mother. A majority of indigenous women were raped by Spaniards in the process of colonization and it is said that Mexicans are sons of “la chingada.”, which implies conflicts in their identity. Maybe that is why the movie has this allegorical title Y tu mamá también, referring to the idea that even your mother is the daughter of “la chingada.” In fact, Julio says the title phrase at the very end of the movie when they are drinking and smoking at the bar, after which is a key sexual scene in which both male protagonists sleep with one other. It seems like there is an unclear sexual identity between them. This unclear sexual identity can refer to — or serve as a metaphor of– the rapes of the colonial period and the consequences that it had in Mexican identity and its conflicts. Cuarón wants to express to the world several conflicts through his movie: on the one hand, he criticizes Mexican society because they were action less in important moments in the past (which is reflected in Tenoch and Julio´s lifestyle, caring about nothing other than sex and drugs). Thus, he critiques the submissive Mexican society. At the same time, Cuarón gives voice to all of the injustices committed against them and reclaims their rights in a visual way, through the strike scene for instance, and in a narrative way, because of the voice-over which provides information about Mexican history.  One the other hand, Cuarón is also telling the story of Mexican roots and what this conflict means in contemporary Mexican society. This idea is expressed through sex and drug use of the protagonists as the way of enduring the identity conflict. Therefore, there are not two different stories but complementary ones, as the “total novels” of Latin American boom. The movie, therefore, embraces all the conflicts in Mexico in detail and use characters and a narrator who represent these specific conflicts and helps to understand the hidden meanings embedded in a movie with different independent stories. It also expresses what Mexico means by the movie as a totality. Then, it could be considered as a “Total movie”.

By analysis of the movie as “total”, Cuarón expresses his particular method of transnational cinema by introducing Transatlantic and specific names as well as what the character represents in a metaphorical way, such as Luisa Cortés. Furthermore, he makes a movie which shows to the world that the past problems and concerns of Mexico regarding politic, rights, oppression, and submission still occur today. Cinema is a narrative, an efficient and affective machine of telling (transnational) stories and History, going beyond linguistic frontiers.