The coming of age of Mexico’s coming-of-age films

The early 2000s in Mexico saw the dawn of a new kind of film: the edgy, voyeuristic coming-of-age movie. There is sex, there are drugs and there are frank discussions of issues considered “hush-hush” in the wider Mexican culture.

Two “clásicos” that I recently rewatched were “Por la libre“ and “Y tu mamá también.” Actually, I only saw “Por la libre,” a few weeks ago for the first time. I might have been blown away by it had I seen it as a 20-year-old, but as a 43-year-old, I rolled my eyes more than once.

“Por la libre” came out in 2000, a time that felt like a new dawn for all of us, right? We had just the right amount of technology to be convenient but not overpowering, and we’d survived what we thought might have been a global crisis since computers wouldn’t know what to do after the year 1999, or something like that. 

The movie follows two late-teen cousins shortly after the death of their Spanish grandfather. The characters are familiar ones in movies of the time: One cousin is a pot-smoking slacker and writer (Hey-o!), while the other is a clean-cut preppy kid with the requisite hot guy, late-’90s haircut. Think the brothers of the TV show “Home Improvement,” and you’ve nailed it.

The minor characters — the rest of the family — form familiar tropes: There’s the angry uncle who wants to make sure he winds up with as much inheritance as possible. There’s the long-suffering unmarried aunt who’s taken care of her parents all this time and now faces a brother who wants to sell their home. And, of course, there’s another uncle/dad and his new girlfriend who we automatically know we should not take seriously because her nipples show through her sweater in a very obvious way.

The free-spirited, or maybe just old, grandfather — who’d been planning to drive to Acapulco for an indefinite stay — kicks the bucket. The slacker grandson decides to make off with his ashes since the rest of the family is stalling the grandfather’s request that they be sprinkled in the ocean there. His preppy cousin hops along for the ride.

“Por la libre,” of course, is a reference both to the kind of highway they took — the nontoll one — and an expression to emphasize they’re going the “free” way. Get it? In English, they called it “Dust to Dust,” which, in my opinion, is an inferior translation. Anyway.

Once in Acapulco, they have the kind of odd-couple misadventures you’d expect in a late ’90s Hero’s Journey story. This includes discovering a young, beautiful girl played by Ana de la Reguera and a chance to use one of the more comical props of the movie, “el condón del abuelo.” Yes, it’s what you think it is. Ick.

The two cousins make a shocking discovery at the end of the movie — I won’t give it away — and, as often happens, embark on a brand-new life stage, wiser and more experienced.

It’s fairly innocent as movies go. One gets the sense that the directors were going for a somewhat “American Pie” a la mexicana feel. It does have a couple of good one-liners, I’ll admit, but for overall edginess, a movie that came out shortly after, “Y tu mamá también,” takes the cake.

It officially took us from ’90s tropes to the 2000s “serious storytelling”; it was an immediate hit in Mexico, and people were still talking about it when I arrived in 2002.

I’ll be honest. Alfonso Cuarón’s “Y tu mamá también” kind of offended my romantic sensibilities when I first saw it at age 21. It’s a story told by two boys at the cusp of manhood — early roles for Diego Luna and Gael García Bernal — and it was edgy in the way that means, if you don’t like it, you’re a prude.

“If this is how boys really talk about girls, I really wish I didn’t like boys,” I remember thinking. “Gross.”

The movie has full-on nudity, and sex that appears very difficult to have faked. Especially for Mexico, this was a lot, and it was an immediate revolution that seemed to come just in time for Mexico’s celebration of democracy after many years of exclusive PRI rule.

Striking, too, was the film’s ability to not shy away from some of the pressing matters of the day — which are still pressing matters, if we’re honest: Sexism, machismo, classism, the pain of enduring socioeconomic inequality — it’s all there. The view constantly switches between the intimate interpersonal and the overall sociological, economic and political situations of Mexico.

It’s an authentic look at a few lives in a certain time in a certain place.

Here’s the premise: Two best friends, whose girlfriends are away for the summer, embark on a road trip to the beach in Oaxaca with an older Spanish woman they definitely did not expect to accept their invitation. But having just been told that her husband cheated on her — and waiting on some mysterious test results from the doctor — she takes them up on it. They hastily map out a route and pick her up.

The rest of the movie is a story of discovery of both the self and of the country as they roam the southern roads and highways of Mexico. The boys, of course, are mostly interested in having sex with Luisa. On the first night, they go to spy on her in her hotel room. Instead of seeing her naked, they see her crying on the bed. Later, as they’re driving and pass a group of police harassing poor people, she asks how they make love to their girlfriends.

And that’s what most of the movie is like: the bravado of youth juxtaposed against the reality of humanity.

The last 30 minutes are quite touching. Two young Mexican men, albeit drunk, transcend both the expected script of jealousy and the homophobia inherent in the culture.

Both of these movies represent a turning point in el cine mexicano. Many coming-of-age movies would follow, like “Temporada de patos” and “Amar te duele.”

But at the turn of the century, the coming-of-age movie was brand new in Mexico, with its whole future laid out before it like a long highway.

Sarah DeVries is a writer and translator based in Xalapa, Veracruz. She can be reached through her website, sarahedevries.substack.com.