In Roma, Academy Award-winning director and writer Alfonso Cuarón (Gravity, Children of Men, and Y Tu Mama Tambien) has delivered an artful love letter to the women who raised him. Presented in Spanish with English subtitles, this immaculately photographed 135-minute film presented in black and white is a beautiful ode to his Mexican childhood. It draws upon Cuarón’s early life experiences growing up in a middle-class family in Mexico City’s Colonia Roma district to create both “a vivid and emotional portrait of domestic strife and social hierarchy amidst political turmoil of the 1970s.” It’s a film about resilience and survival.
As Roma begins, one critic describes its opening as “a mesmerizing four-minute credit sequence – the mopping of a courtyard – the flow of foamy water establishes a rhythm as well as a cleansing metaphor about life and memory.”
The film follows its protagonist Cleo (portrayed by first-time actress Yalitza Aparicio), a young live-in domestic helper, and captures both her devotion to Cuarón’s family as well as detailing her personal problems. She becomes the focal point of the film in what becomes a collection of childhood memories about Cuarón’s family, the house he grew up in, and his neighborhood.
As the film’s writer, Cuarón wrote the script as a stream of consciousness. So, we see a combination of personal and social issues unfold in front of us. It seemed that because Cuarón allowed his emotions to play out, some of the scenes run long without tight editing. However, as the film unfolds it becomes its strength and not a liability.
Roma is meant to make us think. It’s an art film not an entertainment movie. Because Cuarón chose to film it in black and white, we gain more intimate details – and it lends itself toward recalling memory. After all, memory can be subjective – but it can also be objective, too. There is a lot of subtlety, a touch of humor, and plenty of honesty. Several things that are foreshadowed play out later in the movie such as an earthquake, a massive fire and the Corpus Christi massacre of 1971 that is shockingly detailed and restaged by Cuarón.
Roma opens in theaters just in time for the holidays and it’s sure to gain momentum as the awards season comes into full view. It will also be released simultaneously on Netflix, which will allow the film to reach a wider audience. However, Roma is best seen on a large screen and preferably in a classic, single-screen cinema like I saw it on a recent Sunday morning in northwest Washington, D.C. Its directionality of sound is truly amazing. Recently, one critic described Roma’s sound as a “bewilderingly intricate tapestry of distant street sounds, ambient noise and close-up conversations.” It’s a film that you can definitely watch with your ears, but you’ll want to see it with your eyes, too.
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