The Beach (Symbol)
While attempting to impress Luisa, Julio and Tenoch lie about traveling to a glorious beach, known as "Heaven's Mouth." Although the beach does not exist (or so they think), they describe it as incredibly beautiful and idyllic. After discovering that her husband has cheated on her, Luisa expresses interest in seeing the beach. They boys panic, as they don't know how to find it, since they made it up. Still, they hit the road and hope to find any beach that they can tell Luisa is Heaven's Mouth. Driving for several days and fighting along the way, their car gets stuck in the sand. They sleep in the car overnight, but awake to find a beach just as they described. On a tour of the surrounding area, a local fisherman reveals that one beach, miraculously, is named "Heaven's Mouth," just as the boys imagined.
The beach is a symbol of hope and optimism, the promise of something utopian or beautiful in the midst of the confusing chaos of life. The boys put their blind faith in the journey and end up finding exactly the place they sought to find. It is also a symbol of escape and release. Luisa joins the voyage to escape her marital unhappiness and to experience calm and joy at the end of her life. The beach is the place where she can find this peace, and its name "Heaven's Mouth" calls to mind the passage that she is about to take, from life to death.
The Kiss (Symbol)
After fighting and making up, Tenoch, Julio and Luisa get drunk on tequila on the last night of their trip. Luisa turns on the jukebox and seduces both of the boys, attention which both Tenoch and Julio return. As they engage in three-way sexual contact, Tenoch and Julio kiss passionately. Throughout the film they speak disparagingly about homosexuality, even though Luisa jokes that they were actually in love with one another. Tenoch and Julio's friendship is incredibly close, though they believed it to be merely fraternal. The kiss complicates this matter and symbolizes their desire to connect, the fact that they are trying to reconcile that which feels irreconcilable between them: the competition for one another's girlfriends, as well as their class differences. The kiss is a symbol of that which is taboo, a transgressive act between two men who have tried to display their heterosexual masculinity to one another, and also a symbol of their mysterious desire to connect through this gendered posturing, to find peace and togetherness in the face of discord.
Car accident (Symbol)
Early in the film, we see Tenoch and Julio driving through Mexico City and hitting some traffic. Julio believes it must be caused by a protest, but as the narrator tells us, it is in fact caused by an accident. A construction worker has been hit by a car while walking to work. He did not take the pedestrian bridge because it would add an hour to his commute. His death becomes a symbol for the class inequality in Mexico City. The working-class individual's commute is not supported by the infrastructure (the pedestrian bridge) offered to him, but when he seeks to chart his own path, he is hit by a car. The accident symbolizes the inequity and political unrest in the city, that there is a tension between the wealthy and the poor that has literal consequences for the lives of the working class.
Cigarette at the end (Symbol)
On the morning after their menage a trois, Tenoch comes out of the room that they shared and attempts to light his cigarette, but with no success. He tries again and again, but it doesn't work. This moment symbolizes his anxiety about what happened, that something has irrevocably changed and that there is no hope of getting back to the dynamic that the trio had before. While he wants to be able to cut the tension by lighting his cigarette, he is unable to do so, symbolizing his frustration and feelings of helplessness after the previous night's events.
Life is like foam (Allegory)
At the end of the film, the narrator tells us that Luisa's last words to Tenoch and Julio are, "Life is like foam, so give yourself away like the sea." At this point in the film, we do not yet know that Luisa will soon die, so it just seems more like a life philosophy than a dying wish, but it serves as an allegory for a free-spirited approach to life nonetheless. While its exact meaning is somewhat mysterious, it marks Luisa trying to tell two young impressionable men that life is precious and they must surrender to their desires fully and heartily. The metaphor that life is like foam suggests that life is both as ever-present as the sea, but also that it is always changing. The farewell wish is an allegory for living in the present, for being grateful for what one has, and for living with abandon and enthusiasm, as she has been forced to do due to her terminal diagnosis.
