The Divine Presence of the Cha Cha Cha Brotherhood

Shooting a scene from Carlos Cuarón’s “Rudo y Cursi.” Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

Luna cracked that the scenes with Garcia Bernal did not involve an actual ball, and mockingly applauded his acting skills. “It’s tough,” Luna said. “I always had an actor to act with, or a ball to act with. And he had to act wih nothing. He’s an amazing actor.”

In response, Garcia Bernal joked by asking if photoshop was considered a special effect. “That’s a special effect, right, to slim Diego down?”

The film doesn’t actually have a lot of football in it.  “After I saw ‘Funny Games’ - that great film by Michael Haneke in which is the most violent film you could ever see but all the violence is offscreen - I came up with the idea to do the same,” Cuarón explained. “There’s not much [football] in it, it’s more about the reactions.”

“Cursi” is also a exploration of Mexico’s complicated class system, with the main characters journey from one extreme to the next.  “I wanted to make a social portrait of today’s Mexico,” Cuarón said.  There’s this thing about failure and success and how Mexicans regard that… The story gets complicated for the characters in their context. I just wanted to portray it - I don’t judge - I’m just showing all the different classes, the social strata from the very humble countryside guys to lower middle class to upper middle class. It has a lot to do with what’s happening in Mexico right now.”

The question and answer period of the talk inevitably brought back things to Luna and Garcia Bernal’s onscreen kiss in “Tambien” (as well as a question as to whether the boys had girlfriends to which Garcia Bernal proudly informed, “yes”). “The ninth one we gave to each other was like ‘okay,’ and its the one you see in the film,” Luna explained to an audience member. “This is a very bizarre thing that can only happen in an Alfonso Cuarón film but the sound mixer came in - he was hiding with his little ear phones on. And he came out and said, ‘Guys, what’s wrong? The kiss is not a love kiss! I’m not seeing the love there! It’s about love, this kiss!’ And we’re like, ‘He’s the sound mixer!’”

Though there is no such kiss in “Cursi,” you can check it out when it screens again today at the Tribeca Film Festival, and when its released by Sony Pictures Classics on May 8th.  The discussion is part of a series of talks co-presented by indieWIRE and Apple at the Apple Store SoHo. For a full list of talks, click here.

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Will Spanish-language film grow in importance in America?

	Absolutamente, si!
	I doubt it...
	What about French film?

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