Ulrike

Ulrike
2002-10-26 03:23:06 (UTC)

the bitter tears of gael garcia bernal

The last scene of Y Tu Mama Tambien, which was in
reality the first scene of the film since it was in fact the
first filmed, is undoubtedly the most important in the
entire film.
It is not simply that the final scene marks a caesura -
"they will never see each other again" - nor is it the
realization that the two characters' summer love object
has died of cancer. In fact, the tragedy registered for a
fleeting moment in the distanced expression of Julio is
the impending sense of doom that those deterministic
factors of adulthood have already begun to sink in
(university, girlfriends, class standing) for both of them.
The laboratory of youth meets its end, and the
realization that Julio can do nothing to stop society's
encroaching and unfair realities serves as the film's
final hammer blow. Tenoch: too nervous and queasy to
confront what is clearly already happening, excuses
himself and leaves the restaurant. Julio, the child of
the struggling lower-middle classes, bearing the brunt
of it all, absorbs the blows as he crouches back into
his chair and tears well up in his eyes. Before we can
even register the tragedy unfolding, Julio calls for the
check and the screen turns black.
Garcia Bernal perfected the expression of stoic outrage
in the face of (societal) forces out of one's control in
Amores Perros. His characer, in love with the
prototypical passive girlfriend of his deadbeat brother.
Brother beats girlfriend, Garcia Bernal's character truly
loves her and offers her an escape from her life of
drudgery at great personal cost to himself, and yet like
a dog she returns to the deadbeat brother for more
beatings. When it becomes clear that the brother's
girlfriend will not run away with him, Garcia Bernal's
character stands at the bus station at night and says
not a word. Only on his face do we see the traces of
the profound social forces that makes a woman return
to her abuser. It is an utterly confounding situation, and
Garcia Bernal mixes a mouth of disappointment with
imploring, disbelieving eyes. In them, one sees in an
instant the interplay of his personal sense of betrayal
and the individual's helpless role in the face of social
inequity. Better yet, the bitter tears of Garcia Bernal are
the ineffable rage of the utter contingency of living:
love's a bitch.
Your,
Ulrike




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