Steve Ellman How the Mexicans (and Indians) do it. Riding in Cars With Boys So much of "Y Tu Mama Tambien" deals with sex and desire that one local critic, the Palm Beach Post's Hap Erstein, had his eyes too glazed with lust to see anything more on the screen than a South of the Border "American Pie." Dismissing it as little more than a "teen fantasy road picture," (Hollywood should only deliver teen flicks with this film's breadth of vision) Erstein did a major disservice to any reader he convinced to pass up this vital, wise, and funny excursion through contemporary Mexico.

Director Alfonso Cuaron slaps it to the viewer right from the start, with a couple of graphic, comic little quickies for the road between the two male protagonists--buddies Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael Garcia Bernal)-and their girlfriends, who are off to Europe for the summer. The boys can't seem to think about anything much further into the future than their next roll in the hay, and they're soon on the prowl. A chance meeting with Tenoch's gorgeous cousin by marriage, Luisa (Maribel Verdu), a wrong turn in her relationship with her husband, and the threesome is off in Julio's station wagon in search of a mythical, paradisiacal beach-the provocatively named Heaven's Mouth-coupling (and, on one occasion, tripling) along the way.

True to life, those urgings of the flesh can't help but lead to places in the heart and the head no one really sets out to discover when all they want is a little action.

The sex is entertaining, even if the boys are none too skillful, more to be commended for their ardor than their stamina (a narrative trope of no small consolation to older male viewers). The film's treatment of their encounters is even better, making sex once more natural, mystifying (more so to the boys than to Luisa), overpowering in its allure (more so to the boys than to Luisa), and open-ended in its result (ditto). The pleasures of the body leave the boys with more questions than answers, poisoning their friendship with jealousy on one hand and unresolved homoerotic longings on the other.

As much as the lead characters' sexual escapades, however, Mexico itself is the film's subject. Gringo eyes may be surprised to find out how thoroughly modern, thoroughly westernized, is life in urban Latin America today. Tenoch and Julio have a class divide-Tenoch's family are well-to-do and politically-connected, while Julio's are struggling, though not poor-but both boys are as comfortably at home in the world of video games, rap music, Ecstasy, and career anxiety as any suburban U.S. kid.

The boys are too wrapped up in their insecurities and sensual longings to take much notice of what passes by their car window on the road to Heaven's Mouth, but intermittent voiceovers by an omniscient narrator give the viewer tantalizing snippets of everyday life and the political and social conflicts of a modernizing third world country. The way to Heaven's Mouth leads back through the countryside and into Mexico's past, illuminating the present.

Director Cuaron has an unobtrusive camera style, elegant in its simplicity, soaking up the sun-bleached landscapes free of any pyrotechnics that might distract from character and narrative. The technique makes palpable both the easy rapport of the male leads (they worked together on a Mexican television series for many years) and the magnetic presence of Luisa, their object of desire. A plot twist late in the story adds an extra dimension to her sexual daring, but it was an unnecessary touch. The idea that erotic adventure needs justifying may be a peculiarly Anglo-Saxon one, but if it does, this Mexican import gives plenty.

Cell Phone Vindaloo

Some films-like some people-are so pleasing to the eye there really isn't any point in pointing out their shortcomings. You're going to put up with them anyway so you may as well sit back and enjoy what you can.

That's pretty much the case with "Monsoon Wedding," an upbeat, visually stunning new film from India that took top prize-the Golden Lion award-at last year's Venice International Film Festival. It's a film of unabashed warmth, with a positive view of humanity-enough to make you gag, in other words, except for director Mira Shah's light narrative touch and her rapturous feel for the colors and textures of India's land and culture. She never hits you over the head with the former, she drowns you deliciously in the latter.

A Punjabi family wedding is the centerpiece of the story, an occasion on which the small dramas and comedies of the Verma household unfold. The big picture backdrop takes in the pressures of globalization-the impact of dotcom modernity on the subcontinent's 5,000 years of civilization. As with "Y Tu Mama…" the American viewer will probably be surprised to see how much contemporary India has learned to love cell phones, hip-hop, and the self-critical awareness of talking head mediathink.

But the film's geopolitics and social commentary are secondary to its characters' personal stories, significant only in their impact on individual emotional life.

The Vermas are a contemporary family, part of New Delhi's prosperous middle class, with members educated in the universities of the West and scattered across the globe in their work lives. The bridegroom is flying in from Houston, where he works as an engineer. Other family members have made the trek from Moscow, Dubai, and Sydney, Australia.

The family is traditional enough that it's an arranged marriage, however, and father Lalit is all needles and pins attending to every last last-minute detail. Giving away his only daughter, Lalit, all the proprieties must be observed.

Lalit has already broken with the old ways, though. She's coming to the end of an affair gone wrong, having fallen for an older man, married and-even worse-the host of a television talk show. Prestigious, perhaps, but how trustworthy is any journalist?

Lalit comes to the wedding like a return to the shelter of childhood, and most of the film consists of a celebration of family-the songs and storytelling of kith and kin. It's a concept that rings hollow in the industrialized West, where most of us look on family get-togethers like bad-tasting medicine. But if "Monsoon Wedding" has any truth, enough of traditional bonds and shared customs survive in India that the closeness of blood relatives and shared history still provides a haven in a heartless, quickly changing world.

Even if you can't buy into that vision of conventional virtues, "Monsoon Wedding" offers an intimate and appreciative look at the folkways, foods, and arts of India. Go to drink in the sumptuous furnishings and fabrics, the flower-strewn ceremonies, the elaborate henna-painting of the bride's body, the call-and-response singing of the women, the streets and street life of Delhi. A little moralizing is a small price to pay.