After watching the movie and doing the readings for this week, I looked for the trailer of the movie. I wondered how the trailer could show the complexity of this movie in just a couple of minutes. It is very interesting that the trailer has no dialogues, just a sequence of scenes, accompanied by music. The first scene has solemn music; from the second scene until the end,  parts of three songs are played: a Molotov song called “Here comes the mayo” (Molotov is a Mexican rap-rock band very famous up to the present time); an Eagle-eye song: “To love somebody” (This singer is an Sweden- Northamerican singer who took this song from a British-Australian band called the Bee Gees, a very popular band in the sixties); and the third song appeared until the penultimate scene in the trailer that is called: “La Sirenita” by Rigo Tovar (Rigo Tovar is a Mexican singer who creates a musical mix using different kinds of regional music with rock). It shows a mix of international music combined with national music, which also represents national culture and folklore. The last scene finishes with the sound of the sea. Furthermore, a black screen with white letters sometimes appears between the changing of scenes which says: “LIFE has a way of teaching us,” “LIFE has a way of confusing us,” “LIFE has a way of changing us,” “LIFE has a way of surprising us,” “LIFE has a way of hurting us,” “LIFE has a way of healing us,” and “LIFE has a way of inspiring us.”

Paying attention to the scenes selected for the trailer, we can observe that it shows images of some social aspects of Mexico (the traffic jam produced by the death of an immigrant, a scene of a “quinceañera”, the police on one side of the road doing an inspection of settlersm an old woman street vendor of handcrafts, and random people from Mexico villages) as well as landscapes of the country. Principal scenes focus on the friendship of the two main characters: Tenoch and Julio and on some others, like Luisa. It is also interesting that the trailer finishes with an image of Luisa at the sea. The fact that there is no dialogue requires more visual attention and a wider interpretation for the audience. The constant leitmotiv of “LIFE has a way of…” give us an idea that the film could be about learning and experiences of life in general. Taking up the musical aspect again, it also contributes to the idea of life: starting with a solemn music makes me think of a beginning of something like a birth; then, it comes up rap and rock music that make me think of independency, youth and revelry. After that, the love song makes me think of experiences and the necessity of discovering new things about “the other.” In the next sequence there is a mix of national and rock music that makes me think of a lifetime in which we suffer and we mature. This part is accompanied by the crying of Luisa and then it finishes everything with the scene at the sea. Water could be interpreted as a symbol of creation and destruction, birth (as it starts in the swimming pool) and death (at the sea and also because Luisa is also the character who dies in the movie and it appears in this scene of the sea), which makes “life” into something circular as nature. Moreover, the sea is a sign of freedom, a space without borders and it is also one of the aspects that the movie show us with the kind of “life” the two main characters have.

This movie clearly shows a double face and two perspectives in one: the international and the national. According to the film critics, Hollywood cinema is taken as the model of “international and global” movies. They are movies based on cause and effect and the searching for adventure. In contrast, national cinema is more focused on art and culture, as a way of rethinking national society and culture. If we think about the plot of Y tu mamá también there is no more than a trip to a Mexican beach but at the same time it shows us some stereotypical images of settlers living in nearby villages which also represent national culture. At the same time, images of Mexico streets, a traffic accident, and a protest in the center of the city also represent social and national problems. Is it, therefore, a national or a global movie? Based on the plot itself it could be consider as an international movie: two young guys in their age of sexual discovery who enjoy life having sex and taking drugs and who spend several days with an adult woman from Spain who teach them new experiences about sex. At the end, this trip and the relationship that both have with this woman ends up becoming a life lesson and a dilemma for them: love vs. hate, betrayal vs. friendship, heterosexual desire vs. homosexual desire.

However, the extra diegetic voice-over is very important for the representation of the nation. It acts as a narrator in a novel, giving us hidden details which helps to construct the socio-economical context of the plot and contributes to the creation of the national vision: what the protest is about, what happened in some places some years ago or the background and social status of the main characters. These two guys do not represent all the social problems that Mexican society has, but they are an specific part of it: the Mexican upper class. And sex and drugs are political metaphors. These two guys are living in a constant state of “carpe diem” which provokes an escape from reality. There are no boundaries and economical restrictions for them and they are unconscious of the life from outside the bubble that they live in. They live a parallel life to what is actually occurring in Mexico society politically and economically. Tenoch lives in a mansion and his father is involved in the economic corruption of the country, which is paradoxically a problem of the country.

This movie is an adventure that explores the light and the darkness of each of the characters but it also shows that the society they live in is just a game of appearances. In addition, the break of this relationship and the silence at the end are crucial. They leave a feeling of melancholia and emptiness. Mexico is represented as a place of social difference, economic corruption and taboos, and where the claims of middle class society are hidden and ignored. This movie goes from the international interpretations attending to plot, to the national interpretation attending to details.