Film
Scorching, unsettling, uplifting, arousing, at times painfully unflinching and tender, Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too) is a film which undersells itself disgracefully in its 'Mexican-version-of-Road Trip' pitch. Fortunately propelled more by word-of-mouth than by its criminal marketing ideas, one of the best films so far this year comes to our cold shores drenched with summer.
Admittedly, the expected elements are all present: we kick off with two consecutive shags, the teenage couples unforgivingly groaning against a silent score. Public masturbation is added to forcibly Americanised subtitles with annoying and inadvertently comic effect. But by breaking down the art-house barriers which naturally surround a subtitled, low-budget foreign film, it brings itself down to our level, combatting the shittiness of overseas haircuts with the universal shittiness of boys.
However, there remains an eerie seriousness in the story of two 17-year-old
boys, Tenoch and Julio, setting off with their beautiful older cousin on a trip to an imaginary beach, Heaven's Mouth. A calm male voice-over tells us the backgrounds of the characters, their private feelings, and, occasionally, random deaths. The rawness of the camera adds to the unsettling abstraction, filming the vivid journey closely yet passively.
In spite of this, Y Tu Mama Tambien keeps us constantly close to the emotional crises of its characters, struggling with each other and with growing up. Fantastic performances portray intimately the magnetic lure of sex, but also its inevitable aftermath. In a central scene of betrayal, a row between the friends creates a rift which remains throughout the film, making the bright sun and marijuana seem desperately superfluous.
Often a sobering experience, where happiness is destructive and bonds are broken, this strange and stunning movie still leaves you utterly uplifted. Somewhere along the line the sadness becomes poignant, and despite yourself you feel that their freedom has not died. It grows ethereally beautiful in more ways than just visually. I left the cinema like I was walking on the sand.
Bend It Like Beckham has arrived on a surge of Anglo-Asian culture, following in the footsteps of films such as East Is East. As the more astute might have guessed, it is also about football; but those who look forward to watching football about as much as they look forward to root canal surgery will be pleasantly surprised by this film. Essentially in the classic tradition of mainstream Hollywood cinema, it has a heroine, a goal and obstacles: Jess (played charmingly by Parminder Nagra) fights against the odds of a hostile family, injury, and a rather inopportunely-timed wedding to realise her dream of becoming a professional footballer.
With football ground acting as foreground, cultural clash creates a background, and this is what really makes the film work. The aspirations of the younger generation of Anglicised Asians are frustrated through confrontation with their traditional Asian parents; although the film is told through the lens of teenager Jess, writer-director Gurinder Chadha presents both sides of the conflict between older and younger generations, and never rebukes the parents for their protective attitude towards their children.
There are occasional flashes of manual plotting and dialogue, particularly in the montage sequences, which have been done time and again in this kind of movie; the scene where Jonathan Rhys Meyers' football-coach character Joe declares "Of course I understand discrimination: I'm Irish!" predictably brings the house down, and Juliet Stephenson, as the white trash mother of Jess' friend Jules (Keira Knightley), provides some fantastic but familiar Goodness Gracious Me moments. These hackneyed features are, however, atoned for by a sense of reality and warmth in the treatment of both characters and situations. A real highlight is provided by the enjoyable wedding scenes, which add a sense of spectacle in the vein of Bollywood cinema. Despite its faults, Bend It Like Beckham undoubtedly does what it seeks to do with exceptional verve and style.
Like Y Tu Mama Tambien (And Your Mother Too), Bend It Like Beckham is a regional variation on a Hollywood theme that adds a note of sincerity to well-worn Hollywood clichés. Nevertheless, the film comes off badly from the comparison, and illustrates the inability of British cinema, despite its invention, to see beyond the fairy-tale vision of Hollywood. Those who think that Billy Elliot was quality cinema will enjoy Bend It Like Beckham (which is arguably better than Stephen Daldry's film) but others will be left wanting more.
A late night celluloid treat from the Phoenix, coupling kooky French film Amelie with Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
The Farrelly brothers get philosophical as Shallow Hal (Alexander) finds hidden depths when he learns to see inner beauty, and falls in love with a fat Gwyneth Paltrow.
World War One drama follows hideously wounded lieutenant Adrien as he comes to terms with his injuries in a Parisian hospital ward.
2nd May 2002