ABSTRACT
This essay offers an ecocritical reading of Y tu mamá también by Alfonso Cuarón and Temporada de patos (2004) by Fernando Eimbcke through the lenses of spatial justice theory and decolonial theory. Y tu mamá también and Temporada de patos, though not explicitly environmental in focus, actively engage with the representation of slow violence and its consequences at different levels, from the scale of the human body and psyche (sites in which violence is experienced differently according to the positionality of diverse subjects) to the macro level of nation-scapes. The poetic sensibility and narrative arcs of each film, analyzed with attention to the spatial dialectic, including the ecopsychosocial dimension of this dialectic, may be read as ethical and ideological interventions to foreground processes and places that are “normalized” in globalization. The reading explores the ways in which the films underscore human needs for ecopsychosocial well-being and considers the commentary each film makes about agency, space, and place—and the possibility of addressing the malaise of modernity.
