Cyd Okum

Awareness of mortality ultimately gives life its meaning, a truth explored through Harold and Maude (1971) and Y tu mamá también (2001). In both films, the presence of death, embodied in the older women, Maude and Luisa, awakens younger men to the urgency and fragility of existence. Set within different cultural landscapes, each story approaches mortality differently, with one as a performative assertion of freedom, the other as a quiet, inescapable reality woven into social life.

What could possibly be more terrifying than the reality Americans wake up to every day? Certainly not the typical horror films filled with witches, vampires or zombies, which may carry some allegorical weight but rarely land with the force they intend to. No, the real horror is watching our leaders lie on national television, appoint officials who echo the language and behavior of fascists, and watching our basic human rights erode in real time while the country collectively looks away. Ari...