Scene selection — Geoff Carter: ‘Y Tu Mama Tambien’ DVD is the mother lode

Friday, Dec. 13, 2002 | 9:21 a.m.

Geoff Carter is a Seattle based free-lance film critic and entertainment writer. Reach him at carter@pre2k.com.

Idon't have many regrets, but one of my biggest is that I never finished a high school Spanish class. (Or typing; I cut that class, too.)

If I had, I could enjoy the commentary track on the DVD of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" (MGM DVD, $26.98).

I can't begin to follow what stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Diego Luna and Andres Almeida are saying -- the commentary has no subtitles -- but it sounds funny: lots of laughter, and rude sounds I can't begin to describe in a family publication. I'm tempted to hit the local Berlitz in hopes eventually understanding what the boys are saying about one of the most carefree and uninhibited films of recent years.

In the broad strokes a road movie -- a twisting, scenic drive across Mexico to a beach that may or may not exist -- "Y Tu Mama Tambien" is an emotional epic masquerading as a teen sex comedy. Julio (Bernal) and Tenoch (Luna) would feel right at home with "American Pie's" happily amoral crew: They talk about sex to the exclusion of all else, seem to smoke their weight in marijuana annually and aspire to be full-time libertines.

When they talk the beautiful Luisa (Maribel Verdu) into leaving her unfaithful husband for a road trip, Julio and Tenoch rejoice with the fervor of lottery winners.

But director Alfonso Cuaron has a different trip plotted out for them. Their journey skirts the border of "Porky's," but actually drives straight into the heart of "Jules and Jim," with the same kind of funny and tragic circumstances that befell Francois Truffaut's love triangle.

Cuaron, directing from a screenplay by his brother Carlos, provides a spiritual journey like few others. As the trio drive through military checkpoints, past memorials and through one-horse towns, even encountering a princess, they almost seem to be traveling through time.

The script traces the story of every soul they encounter, every landmark they pass to its conclusion, giving us the perspective its male characters lack.

Luisa, on the other hand, almost has too much perspective. Burdened with a secret that isn't revealed until the film's last heartrending moments, she sees life as she's never seen it before. She seduces the boys, a decade her junior, with a single-minded determination, and even slaps Julio and Tenoch back into shape when they inevitably descend into bickering.

"You're so lucky to live in Mexico ... It breathes with life," she says. Fortunately, the boys aren't so blinded by their hormones that they can't glimpse what Luisa is clearly seeing.

Even in its most poignant moments, "Y Tu Mama Tambien" fairly trembles with rapture. It's not too surprising that the DVD's behind-the-scenes documentary (which, thankfully, is subtitled) shows a cast and crew having the time of their lives.

The narrator of the film narrates the documentary with the same gravitas, even as he notes that the director's favorite on-set phrase was "Who did it? I want names."

Alfonso Cuaron is set to direct the next Harry Potter film, "The Prisoner of Azkaban." It's probably no coincidence that "Azkaban" is the first of J.K. Rowling's books in which the title character discovers girls. While Cuaron won't make a sex comedy of the beloved children's novel, "Y Tu Mama Tambien" proves that he understands the magic of human chemistry.

He speaks that language fluently.