Gravity (2013)

After debuting with the peaceful, slow burner Arctic (2018), director Joe Penna brings to us his new production, Stowaway (2021). It seems that the Brazilian filmmaker has a predilection for the survival genre.

In Stowaway, he narrates the story of a starship crew (Anna Kendrick as Zoe Levenson; Toni Collette as Marina Barnett; and Daniel Dae Kim as David Kim) struggling with serious technical problems on a two-year mission to Mars. During the trip, they discover aboard the presence of Michael (Shamier Anderson), a stowaway who jeopardizes everyone’s life on board. Due to a lack of resources, the only possible solution is to sacrifice the stowaway. Other way, the whole mission would be compromised, and all the crew would die.

In this sense, the movie is like other pseudo-scientifical productions released over the last decade. For instance: Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013), which talks about outer space survival too; Arrival (Denis Villeneuve, 2016), where the most interesting thing is how they address the issue of communication between humans and an extra-terrestrial civilization; and The Martian (Ridley Scott, 2015), existing a strong resemblance between this one and Stowaway, especially in the part where we can see different scientists realistically doing very specific lab work.

After starting with one of the most successfully spaceship takeoff shot I can remember, the action rapidly puts the spectator in outer space. It seems that Penna knows how to use the silence and characteristic deep space quietness in some scenes to transmit distress and mystery. Right after it, he introduces the crew to us; we can see that they are scientists, not superhumans, and they have their flaws, just like everyone else. For example, David, the biologist, suffers from vertigo, and Marina, the ship commander, gets anxious when she must deal with some unforeseen problems.

Years before Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron was winning Academy Awards for movies like Gravity (2013) and Roma(2018), he directed a small, intimate film about two best friends who decide to embark on an improvised road trip to spend time with an older, attractive woman who miraculously agrees to go with them. Y tu Mamá También is a deep journey into the raw sexuality and friendship of the young protagonists, as well as a subtle social and political commentary on Mexico at the time.

Julio (Gabriel Garcia Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) are 17-year-old teenagers living in Mexico City. They come from vastly different social classes, and Cuarón makes it clear without them actually acknowledging it. On a family wedding, they meet Luisa (Maribel Verdu), an older Spanish woman who immediately grabs the interest of both Julio and Tenoch. When talking to her, they brag about a secret, very exclusive, and beautiful beach called Boca del Cielo, which they claim to know the location. Of course, they improvised the whole thing, and they don’t actually know anything about it. Luisa dismisses them at the wedding but calls them later after getting some bad news. So, the trio depart on Tenoch’s sister’s beat up car, travelling through rural Mexico to get to the promised beach.

Cuarón decided to have a narrator, so the soothing, somewhat indifferent voice of Daniel Gimenez populates the film, giving out small details about the protagonists as well as the background context of Mexico’s poor economic and social situation. I’m not a fan of narration in film, because it almost always feels cheap and lazy to have a narrator explaining everything instead of showing it through storytelling technique. However, there’s something oddly poetic about Cuarón’s words and the way they are delivered. I can’t imagine the film having as much impact as it did without the narration. The final words are said by the narrator, and it’s one of the most melancholic, haunting endings even though not much emotion is being shown on screen.

I think on the surface, Y tu Mamá También (2001) is a fun, raunchy road trip movie that can be enjoyed as a representation of Mexican life. Julio and Tenoch are drastic representations of two social classes that you’ll encounter in Mexico City, yet their friendship is so strong it might make the viewer wonder if it’s realistic at all. Let me tell you that it is. Few films that I have seen feature a friendship as authentic as this one, even when things eventually go sour for our two friends. After all, they are teenagers who mostly act according to their hormones. They continuously fight for Luisa’s admiration, boasting and acting like a couple of macho males. By the end, Cuarón ends up exploring their fragile masculinity, which comes to surface a little too much, altering their relationship forever.

I have to mention Maribel Verdu’s impeccable performance as Luisa. She acts as a sort of third protagonist once the film gets going, and it adds a much-needed relief from Tenoch and Julio’s dynamic. Luisa, being older, beautiful, and foreign to the boys, is what makes her so attractive to them. Watching as an outsider, there’s no possible reason she would agree to go with these two knuckleheads, yet there is something she isn’t telling them. Luisa has just broken up with her long-term boyfriend, Jano. She also learns that he cheated on her in the process, explaining why she decides to use this opportunity as a liberation. Be it spiritual or sexual, she goes along with it, taking advantage of every moment of the trip. What she finds at the end brings her the peace and closure she was looking for, faithfully completing her arc.