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Later on, we see Ned teaching a\u00a0little boy to swim in an empty pool, the water having been drained over safety concerns. Upon witnessing the boy\u2019s skepticism, Neddy says, \u200b\u201c<\/span>If you make believe hard enough that something is true, then it is true for you,\u201d because, \u200b\u201c<\/span>when I\u00a0was a\u00a0kid people used to believe in things.\u201d This scene effectively summarises Neddy\u2019s own delusion, with his attempts to revert to a\u00a0state of childhood innocence shattered in the film\u2019s final pool scene. Unlike Odysseus, Ned\u2019s ending is not one of triumph. For the first time, we see him outside of the pool setting; having finally reached his own home, he finds the property overgrown with weeds, the tennis court unusable, and his family long gone. Back on dry land, Neddy\u2019s childish illusion and dream of his \u200b\u201c<\/span>all-American family\u201d is no longer contained in a\u00a0pool-shaped fantasy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If\u00a0<\/span>The Swimmer\u00a0<\/i>is considered the pinnacle of the swimming pool canon, then 1967<\/span>\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>The Graduate\u00a0<\/i>is a\u00a0worthy companion. The film follows Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), who has just graduated from university. Upon moving back into his parents\u2019 house, as he desperately tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life, he soon finds himself pulled into an affair with bored housewife Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).<\/span><\/p>\n Benjamin\u2019s feelings of uncertainty and loss of freedom are best summarised in an extended sequence depicting a\u00a0bronzed Benjamin floating at the bottom of a\u00a0pool after being forced into a\u00a0scuba suit on his birthday for the amusement of his parents and their friends. By shooting the scene from Benjamin\u2019s submerged perspective \u2013 through narrow goggles, completely surrounded by water \u2013 director Mike Nichols invites us to view the world as Benjamin does. The camera pans to take in the suffocating blue abyss, emphasising Benjamin\u2019s feelings of isolation in his own\u00a0home.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In this moment, the film also masterfully utilises sound, with the only noise being Benjamin\u2019s exaggerated breathing as he drowns out the sound of the party and therefore the expectations and responsibilities of adulthood. Later, we see Benjamin lounging on a\u00a0lilo, after sleeping with Mrs Robinson for the first time. He remarks to his father upon his questions about whether he will be attending graduate school, that \u200b\u201c<\/span>it\u2019s very comfortable just to drift here\u201d, perfectly summarising his feelings towards this shift. Lying on the lilo, he doesn\u2019t have to choose between swimming or not swimming; the pool is a\u00a0liminal space representing his awkward transition from boy to\u00a0man.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Elsewhere, Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s 2001<\/span> road movie\u00a0<\/span>Y\u00a0tu mam\u00e1 tambi\u00e9n,<\/i> charts the transition of late teenagers with similar intensity, at a\u00a0time of sociopolitical upheaval in Mexico. In a\u00a0recent interview with\u00a0<\/span>Movie Maker<\/span><\/a>, Cuar\u00f3n revealed the film\u2019s intrinsic link to youth: \u200b\u201c<\/span>For us, this movie is about identity. Two young men seeking their identity as adults\u2026together with that is an observation of a\u00a0country that in our opinion is a\u00a0teenage country looking for its identity as a\u00a0grown-up country.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Both Julio (Gael Garc\u00eda Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) have finished school and are seduced by the allure of being by the water during the long hot days of summer, free from their highschool girlfriends and as fluid as the element they inhabit. In a\u00a0demonstration of their infantile energy, we see these two boys compete against each other in swimming and masturbating contests in the Olympic-size pool at the country club where Tenoch\u2019s father is a\u00a0member, while fantasising about Salma Hayek and Luisa (Maribel Verd\u00fa), \u200b\u201c<\/span>la espa\u00f1olita\u201d, the wife of Tenoch\u2019s cousin. A\u00a0high-angle long shot shows the boys side by side lying on adjacent springboards, engaged in simultaneous masturbation, before an underwater shot shows a\u00a0squirt of semen entering the water, foreshadowing their journey of sexual discovery.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n As their relationship with Luisa intensifies, the boys once again swim together, this time in a\u00a0distinctly less well-kept motel pool overflowing with leaves. This change in setting embodies the boy\u2019s evolving relationship, which is now entirely symbolic of their competition for Luisa\u2019s affection. Julio has seen Tenoch and Luisa having sex and walks out to sit at the edge of the pool. The narrator says that Julio has only ever felt anger like this when he saw his mother with a\u00a0man when he was a\u00a0child. Instead of talking, they decide to race again. A\u00a0victorious Julio reveals that he slept with Tenoch\u2019s girlfriend; the narrator states that Tenoch had only ever felt like that when, as a\u00a0child, he read an article about his father selling contaminated corn to the poor. It is critical that the boys\u2019 ambivalent relationship with one another is backdropped by swimming pools because it allows us to understand how they each construct their concept of sexual identity in relation to their own youthful experiences. They are not yet mature enough to express certain emotions which continue to bubble under the surface.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n At the end of the film, a\u00a0significant shift occurs when the constrictive, self-contained pool is exchanged for the vast expanse and unknown of the ocean. Choosing to stay in rural Mexico alone, Luisa submerges herself in the ocean, and so enacts a\u00a0kind of symbolic death. Tenoch and Julio were drawn to Luisa just as they are drawn to water, yet their eventual return home signals their acceptance of meeting their parents\u2019 expectations. As both the boys and country open themselves to the unknown, Cuar\u00f3n leaves us with a\u00a0final message: \u200b\u201c<\/span>Life is like the surf<\/a>. Give yourself away like the\u00a0sea.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n