Brothers Alfonso (left) and Carlos Cuarón
LOVE IN THE TIME OF
HYSTERIA (Sólo Con Tu Pareja) C
Mexico (94 mi)
1991 d: Alfonso Cuarón
A whirlwind sex
farce in the manner of Pedro Almodóvar, who had already released Matador
(1986), Law
of Desire (La ley del deseo) (1987), and WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS
BREAKDOWN (1988), blending a rich stylization of bold colors with exaggerated
melodramas, not afraid to tackle subjects like murder, mutilation, suicide, or
blood splattering, usually wrapped in a B-movie setting, all of which set the
stage for this film, which attempts to be a screwball comedy on the theme of
Latin lover Don Juan, whose sexual exploits are notorious, though here one of
his jilted lovers gets payback, featuring rapid-fire dialogue (co-written by
the director and his brother Carlos Cuarón), though most if it falls flat and
never really amounts to anything.
Nonetheless the film exudes a stylish presence, introducing legendary
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, featuring several notable landmarks of Mexico
City, shooting many notable helicopter shots high above the city looking down
at the skyscrapers and city landscape to the flickering lights below, making
recurring use of the Angel de la Independencia statue, while using the city’s
tallest building, the Torre Latinoamerica, in one of the most crucial
scenes. Though the Mexican government
financed the film, it found the content disturbing and refused to distribute the
film, banning it outright, instead finding its way into various film festivals,
paving the way for the director’s exit to greener pastures in Hollywood,
returning to Mexico a decade later to film Y Tu
Mamá También (2001) which became an
international hit, with the director apparently finding the right balance
between open sexuality and crude humor, using frequent political and socially
relevant asides. This earlier film,
however, feels more frantic, infused with a youthful exuberance of bad taste,
not the least of which is making an AIDS comedy at the height of an AIDS
epidemic with its increasing death toll, so many may not have found the jokes
funny when gripped with the reality of the devastation of the disease. The American title is actually a takeoff on
the novel by Gabriel García Márquez, Love
in the Time of Cholera, which is a clever play on words, while the Spanish
title of “Only With Your Partner” (part of a national PSA safe sex campaign to
avoid contracting the AIDS virus) suggests a theme of fidelity, which, of
course, is entirely non-existent to a womanizer who’d rather practice the Don
Juan art of seduction on nearly every woman he meets, which includes screwing a
bride moments before she takes her vows.
Daniel Giménez Cacho, the intrusive narrator in Y Tu
Mamá También, is Tomás Tomás, seen
having sex without a condom in the opening scene, foreshadowing a dark fate
that awaits him. Cuarón gets a kick out
of wordplay, using double names for many of the central characters, including
the ladykiller’s neighbor, Doctor Mateos Mateos (Luis de Icaza) and his wife
Teresa de Teresa (Astrid Hadad), both of whom seem to live vicariously through
the sexual exploits of Tomás Tomás, whose inflated view of himself leaves him
perpetually stuck in arrested adolescence.
Among the many
failings of Tomás is his ability to concentrate, as he’s forever losing focus
due to his hyperactive hormonal urges set on overdrive, playing out in a
hysterical madcap farce. While his job
is to write advertising slogans, his oversexed boss, Gloria (Isabel Benet), is
his mirror image, knowing a good thing when she sees him, driving her employee
particularly hard so those pent-up frustrations can turn into a rush of
all-consuming sexual passion between them, where he’s like her wind-up toy. Living alone in an upscale apartment in
Mexico City, Tomás and his friends are the picture of bourgeois success, which
he apparently measures by the bounty of female flesh that makes its way into
his bed at night, each one interchangeable, where it’s hard for him to even
remember their names, displaying an unnerving sense of male arrogance. Among his favorite routines in the morning,
dressed only in his robe and a pair of sneakers, running in place at the top of
a circular staircase, dropping his robe and running completely naked down
multiple flights to the ground foyer to retrieve a newspaper before sprinting
back up the stairs before he’s caught, usually occurring while a woman is
calling for him to come back for more.
This degree of exaggeration plays into the male mystique of Tomás who
obviously sees his machismo identity intertwined with his sexual prowess. The almost nonstop use of the music of Mozart
plays (or often repeats) throughout, offering an operatic counterpoint, where
the melodic Gran Partita becomes a
prominently recurring theme
Mozart: Serenade No 10 for Winds 'Gran Partita', III. Adagio | LSO (5:57)
interspersed with operatic excerpts from Don
Giovanni, like Mozart
/ Ezio Pinza, 1946: Madamina (Don Giovanni) - Bruno Walter ... (5:35),
creating a rakish, larger-than-life persona who is played for laughs and utter
buffoonery. When Tomás meets a sexy
nurse at the doctor’s office, Silva Silva (Dobrina Liubomirova), who turns
drawing blood into a game of sexual domination, they quickly get the hots for
each other and make a date, retreating to his boudoir and hopping into bed
while at the same time his boss Gloria announces she’s paying him a surprise
visit at home, forcing the smooth-talking lothario to juggle two women at the
same time in what is arguably the comic sequence of the film, sending Gloria to
his neighbor’s apartment (who happens to be away), while scaling the outer
ledge of the building wearing only a towel, (which of course falls off)
climbing through the windows as he moves back and forth between visits,
continually interrupting the anticipated sexual pleasure, feigning bathroom
breaks as he hops between apartments, attempting to satisfy both women, which
turns disastrous, as Silva feels slighted, angrily vowing revenge.
Having access to his
medical records, she sends the doctor the correct version while fabricating the
copy she sends Tomás, indicating he tested positive for AIDS. This practical joke sends Tomás into a
suicidal plunge, but not before he first meets the woman of his dreams, Claudia
Ramírez as Clarissa, the beauty in the next door apartment who works as an
airline stewardess, the fiancé of an airline pilot, developing a high-flying
romance. While we initially see her
practicing her stewardess safety routines, their initial encounter is seeing
him naked in the hallway, embarrassed at being locked out, but he’s struck by
her beauty, falling for her on the spot, hastily confessing his feelings for
her to Teresa, not realizing Clarissa is also visiting her as well, dressed in
her uniform, carrying her overnight bag, hearing every word, which she takes in
stride, as she lives her life through habitual routines built around travel and
meticulous scheduling so she and her pilot have coinciding downtime. This doesn’t deter Tomás in the least,
adoring the color of her eyes, lavishing her with love and praise, promising to
see her when she returns. In the
interim, however, he happens upon the medical report, which sends him into a
tailspin of depression, having nightmarish visions, thinking he needs to end it
all, that his life has been criminally misspent, an utter waste, claiming he’s
of no use to anyone, believing the quickest way to end it all is sticking his
head into a microwave oven and turning it on, mimicking a story going around of
what some gringo lady did to her dog.
The plot just gets dumber and dumber, ambitiously attempting to make a
madcap comedy, but it’s bogged down in stereotypes, tasteless jokes, and bad
humor, using AIDS as an eye-opener to get one’s tragically misguided moral
principles on track, yet it convinces no one.
Most will view Tomás as a legendary urban hero, envious of his sexual
exploits, as if that’s what any man would desire, turning him into a mythical
figure, a kind of stand-in for Mexican masculinity, yet he also represents a
perpetually confused state of mind whose fall from grace is not
unexpected. Despite the rambunctious
style and narrative absurdities, the film attempts to be a rollicking ride,
carrying a prolonged party sequence of drunken revelers well beyond its
expiration point, making fun of two Japanese travelers, Koyi (Carlos Nakasone)
and Takeshi (Toshirô Hisaki), endlessly flashing photos of nonsensical
subjects, while Mateos and Teresa seem to be getting some pangs of pleasure out
of watching Tomás finally get what he deserves, yet it’s hard to take any of
this seriously, designed as a satiric spectacle of the living, as if in the
gluttonous last days of Rome before the fall, using farce and caricature to
thinly hint at subject matter. The
telenova style feels overly predictable, not exactly flush with imagination or
originality, becoming a fairly standard comedy that never ends up being very
funny, with inept characters that draw little sympathy, becoming too goofy to
like, where nothing is ever believable.
While never warming to this director, having seen six features, the only
film of real interest has been Children
of Men (2006), displaying more
verve and originality than all his more critically acclaimed and prestigiously
awarded films. Of note, Cuarón’s
real-life nanny, Liboria “Libo” Rodríguez, who played such a profound role in raising
Cuarón, the featured subject in his fictionalized tribute, Roma (2018),
appears onscreen in a brief role protecting a young child from Tomás and his
audacious display of public nudity.
