Was anyone else bothered by the narrations?

Besides for the narration, I thought this was a brilliant film. Problems with the narrations: 1)For such a visual film, it's kind of a letdown to have voice-overs so frequently. 2)The best parts of the film were when the boys/woman were talking in the car. The narrations would take a well flowing conversation and interrupt it. 3)The muted sound felt weird. Taking the narration into account, this movie is an 8/10. Without it, the film would be 9/10. Either way, it's a really good movie.

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bdoliver11:

"My take on the commentary is that the writer was showing how there are a lot of things going on around the characters. Even if it wasn't particularly about the characters, there is still stuff going on. It was more of a way to make the landscape and the country basically another character in the movie."

I agree. As adolescents (or even adults), we can be so oblivious of everything around us.

The narration and the cutting off of the sound also emphasizes the secrets that the characters don't want to get revealed. The VO explicitly says this in certain parts. I love how this technique is used in the three main characters' conversations in the car.

In real life, we are not aware of a lot of things, either because we (un)willingly ignore them or other people don't want certain details shared.

I understand the consideration of "show, don't tell." In conjunction with yap613: "For such a visual film, it's kind of a letdown to have voice-overs so frequently," I have this personal belief in filmmaking that it's okay to show AND tell. The film is indeed visual. For me, the VO adds another dimension. Honestly, I was bothered by it at the beginning, but I found the VO justified by the end.

the narration is one of the best things about the film

one bit that stood out to me for whatever reason was the narration over the man with his family, on his boat in the night time. "he would start his own business, but it would fail due to breaking new laws on owning a company. In 2 years time he will be a cleaner for a hotel. He will not fish again"

paraphrasing..

it really gives the film a whole new layer, showing that altho the story we're watching is about these 3 people, this is just 1 story and everybody has their own. it gave me a very strange feel, like nostaliga and beauty. it made me sad and happy at the same time :-)

Though I usually don't like narrations, in this film I thought they were beautiful. Sometimes just nonsense but it gave us a better glimpse of the characters lives.

Like the one where he talks about what the boys do in the bathroom in the other ones house. It was important cause it showed us how they really felt about eachother. Julio possibly showing a bit more respect and Tenoch looking down at Julios family cause they are poorer. We wouldn't know about these things if it weren't for the narrator.

Also... I can kill you with my brain

I sort of cut the narration some slack (even though it didn't always work for me) because I think it would likely come across better for a fluent Spanish speaker watching without subtitles.

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It took me a while to like the narration voice, but, in the end, it turns out being totally part of the story. It adds a deep layer that changes the value of many things we see.
Every time we are told about something "unnecessary", we are actually given proof of how in life things happen, just like how we see antything else in the movie.

'What has been affirmed without proof can also be denied without proof.' (Euclid)

Although I found the muting of the scenes and narration to be a bit odd at first - if only for the reason that each time the sound muted before the narration began, it took me out of the movie because I thought there was a audio error. That being said....

I really enjoyed this unique method of film narration. It served multiple functions for me: the conversation was muted to show that although this is just one story, there is a larger world out there and the viewer gets an omnipotent viewpoint of the country, politics, and world. It was also interesting because the dialog conflicted with reality. As the characters said one thing, the sound of their world cut off and the reality of that scene and it's ramifications were introduced. I liked it, but I totally understand why other would not.

I was not bothered by the narration at all, in fact I thought that it helped the film show a whole different layer outside of "two teen boys go on a sexually charged trip with an older woman." In fact, I have found over the years that much of South American art has a class/social undertone to it and I thought the narration helped bring that to light, amongst other things. The migrant worker story, all servants being indigenous versus all rich/elites being light-skinned/European ancestry, the police used as a weapon in the class warfare against poor people, most rural people being indigenous (another example that comes to mind immediately is the Motorcycle Diaries, although I haven't seen that in many years). And this isn't just about Mexico, from what I have understood this holds true of many countries south of the USA. Two examples that I've personally come in contact with through family/friends have been Peru and Bolivia, they are stratified much the same way, European-ancestry/light-skinned elite/rich, indigenous servants/farmers/poor. Was it obvious to any South Americans/latinos/Mexicans? I'm Russian and this spoke volumes to me, maybe because I'm somewhat familiar with the history/context of the region, although I have never actually been there in person.