Only with Cuarón

Long before Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón would direct "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban" or earn an Oscar nomination for the widely appreciated "Y tu mamá también," he would leave his TV career in the dust and create his auspicious debut, "Sólo con tu pareja" ("Only with Your Partner"). \n"Pareja," made in 1991, received a very limited theatrical release earlier this year in preparation for what many are calling Cuarón's greatest accomplishment yet, "Children of Men," which hits screens come December during prime Oscar season. "Pareja" tells of Tomás Tomás (played with great physical wit by Daniel Giménez Cacho), a casanova who beds as many Mexican babes as he can. Like most playboys, Tomás can't remember the names of any of the women he's sleeping with, and when he offends Silvia (Dobrina Liubomirova), a nurse his doctor set him up with, she takes revenge on him by telling him his AIDS test came back positive even though it was negative. This news comes at the worst time as Tomás thinks he has just met the woman of his dreams: the new neighbor, Clarisa (Claudia Ramírez). \n"Pareja," while hilarious, is also a social commentary on the AIDS crisis in Mexico during the early years. As Cuarón explains in the making-of supplement, many people in Mexico thought AIDS was only contracted by homosexuals, so to portray a heterosexual man who gets the disease seemed absurd to some, but was praised by many organizations for its honesty. \nThe same making-of featurette is a great example of a director who is frank as possible. Cuarón reminisces of sneaking into an adult movie hoping to see some "titties," when the film ended up being the Italian masterpiece "Bicycle Thieves." The film changed his life, giving him the desire to become a filmmaker, and it shows throughout this segment, which also includes interviews with his brother Carlos (who co-wrote "Pareja") and Daniel Giménez Cacho. Each Cuarón brother also offers up a short film for this DVD release. Alfonso's "Quartet for the End of Time" is an existential slice of filmmaking while Carlo's "Wedding Night" is brief yet brilliantly funny. Also included are the theatrical trailer and a booklet containing Tomás Tomás' biography as penned by Carlos Cuarón. \n"Sólo con tu pareja" makes for a great companion piece with "Y tu mamá también," and should be viewed as a double-feature, primarily for their honest exploration of sexuality. And one should not forget to praise the Criterion Collection, not only for releasing Cuarón's excellent debut, but for making him the first Mexican filmmaker to be included in their long list of respected directors. He's earned it.