Persistence of Mamá-ry

Y tu mamá también is the highest grossing Spanish-language film of all time in Ireland. Sold worldwide as a teen sex comedy this film, argues Tony Keily, gave audiences a lot more than they bargained for. [Extract]

Mouth of Heaven
The intricate pearl-strings of week-on-week box office stats are of endless and futile fascination to a growing number of 'buffs' (the jury's still out on what they're buffing). Though eager to shun their company, I admit that the odd time their pearls are worth a snatch. So let's have a look. YTMT grossed upwards of €130,000 on Irish screens. This followed the best ever opening in Ireland for a Spanish language film (as well as being the third highest opening week ever for a subtitled film) with an initial gross of €34,155 from 3 prints with a €11,385 screen average. Previous Spanish language successes at the Irish box office include Amores Perros which opened at €9,376.41 (IR£7,383 from 1 screen) and All About My Mother at €19,391.63 (IR£15,269 from 5 screens).

Internationally the story has been repeated. Made for $5 M, in Mexico the film grossed $2.2 M in its opening week. In the US it has passed the $16 M mark. In Spain it grossed over €1M in its opening four weeks. These are hispanophone markets. But it did over £1M in Britain inside four weeks too. About 50,000 of 4 million Norwegians had flocked to see it by late summer. The film played in nine cinemas in Ireland. Initially it screened in the IFC and the UGC in Dublin, and the Capitol in Cork. The last two venues didn't at first seem the natural home for foreign language fare. Certainly the Kino in Cork were sorry not to get their hands on the title and still feel they could have done more with it then the multiplex just down Washington St. But it soon became evident that audiences would follow this film wherever it went. For quite some time, the Stella in Rathmines was the only venue anywhere near the centre of Dublin where the film could be caught, and caught it was. Later came the Ster Century, Ormonde Stillorgan, and Screen D'Olier St. Queen's Film Theatre, Belfast and Triskel, Cork followed. The film has also played on the Access Cinema circuit. Apart from Teen Spirit, that smells of good of word of mouth given the film's low P & A spend. It's interesting in this regard that the film opened in the US on St Patrick's Day 2002 on only 40 screens. As the greenbacks rolled in the release widened until seven weeks later YTMT was showing on 286 screens Stateside.

Having fun with cancer and alienation
How was this managed? First of all the film was marketed as a sex-drenched teen comedy (on the posters, in chosen quotes, above all on the Cheech and Chong-ish website). That in itself was quite a feat. There are six sex scenes in the film: Tenoch and his girlfriend followed by Julio and his girlfriend, then a brief mutual masturbation session featuring the same two lads. Then Tenoch and Luisa followed by Julio and Luisa. Finally, after too many beers and tequilas, Luisa helps Julio and Tenoch get it on. Since the pair are exponents of that youthful male practice of closed-eyed speedfucking that lasts about twenty seconds and is little more than a pain in the ass to the recipient, this adds up to a total of about two or three minutes of sex in 105 minutes. Or being generous, maybe 200 out of 9509 feet of celluloid. The sex is all talk. Then there's the comedy. I don't want to come on like a screen guru, but didn't somebody classical tell us that comedy was all about the joy of community at the conclusion, after whatever terrors have gone before? YTMT ends with one of its three protagonists dead from cancer and the other two alienated from each other and from lives in which they no longer have any say. What a laugh, hey?!

The full text of this article is printed in Film Ireland 89