Alfonso Cuarón’s moving camera keeps people and their surroundings in view together. We admire the technical nerve and the kindness towards human foolishness, though his determination to explain what we should notice can interrupt the pleasure.
Fi1m perspective
The boys in Y Tu Mamá También (2001) are so busy taking sex seriously that they barely notice how ridiculous they look. Cuarón gives them time to embarrass themselves without asking us to despise them. We laughed at their frantic impatience, because Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna make confidence look like something that needs constant maintenance. Maribel Verdú gives their self-importance a persuasive challenge. This is the Cuarón we value most: patient with people, but alert to what they fail to notice.
Cuarón often follows people through complicated spaces in long, fluid tracking shots. In Y Tu Mamá También, his work with cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki gives the journey a looseness that suits the travellers. There is room to look beyond them, and the unequal lives around them need not wait for the boys to pay attention. Production designers Miguel Ángel Álvarez and Marc Bèdia make those places feel inhabited rather than arranged for a road film.
The route to that film ran from the Mexican debut Sólo con tu pareja (1991) through the Hollywood features A Little Princess (1995) and Great Expectations (1998). Returning to Mexico for Y Tu Mamá También gave him his breakthrough. He followed it with the franchise film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), then the dystopian drama Children of Men (2006), whose extended shots join action to the surrounding world. Gravity (2013) put technical invention to work in a space thriller; Roma (2018) returned him to Mexico for a semi-autobiographical black-and-white drama.
The reservation is that he can insist on a point the scene has already made. In Y Tu Mamá También, Daniel Giménez Cacho’s dry narration draws attention to Mexico’s economic divisions, but some interventions sound like lessons attached to the journey. Cuarón and fellow editor Alex Rodríguez do not always make those interruptions sit comfortably with the boys’ adventures. We welcome the wider view, but occasionally wish he would trust the places and performances to supply it. Start with this film for the humour and the three performances; allow for a director who sometimes explains more than he needs to.
Biography
Alfonso Cuarón is a Mexican film director, screenwriter, producer and editor. Born in Mexico City on 28 November 1961, he studied at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Cuarón made his feature debut with Sólo con tu pareja (1991). He directed A Little Princess (1995) and Great Expectations (1998). His breakthrough film Y tu mamá también (2001) credits him as director, writer, producer and editor. He also produced Pan's Labyrinth (2006) and served as director, writer and editor on Children of Men (2006). Later works include Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), Gravity (2013) and Roma (2018).
