Upon it's Oscar nomination for Best Picture, I decided to watch the film Roma, directed by Alfonso Cuaron. Throughout the film, Cuaron pays homage to Mexico City in the 1970s, where he grew up, amidst political chaos and personal struggles. The story centers around Cleo, who works as a maid for a dysfunctional middle-class family and lives in their home. Roma is a captivating story about Cleo's life as a maid and with that, her resilience and her undying love for the children of the family. Her world is full of instability; she faces an unwanted pregnancy, a forest fire, political turmoil, and the messy divorce between the parents, Sofia and Alfonso, of the family she looks after. Amidst the tensions in the family and the instability of their environment, it becomes clear that Cleo is the silent driving force of the family.
Through the camerawork and shot framing, the entire movie undoubtedly centers around Cleo in an intimate way. Although she appears to be simple and quiet, her courage and resilience are evident by the end of the film because the whole story embodies her. In the climactic scene where two of the children are drowning in the ocean, Cleo rushes out to save them, despite her inability to swim. The camera steadily focuses on her going out to sea during the whole sequence. Cuaron expertly focuses the entire scene around Cleo because, to him, the fact that she ran into the waves without hesitation is much more important than the children who got caught in the current. This single shot expertly expresses how Cleo's brokenness from the loss of her own child did not crush her spirit or diminish her profound love toward the children of the family that she works for. Each shot, whether close up or wide, seemed to move with Cleo, thus, developing her character and making the audience understand who she is.
In addition, Cuaron is able to subtly convey the rising tension and chaos in the household. He first does this with the opening frame: the outdoor courtyard being mopped. Cleo mops the cobblestones in the courtyard with great care, yet it seems to go unnoticed by Sofia and Antonio, the parents who are undergoing painful marital problems. At later times in the film, both Sofia and Antonio park in the courtyard that Cleo took such great care with. The pair parks carelessly, scraping the walls and wrecking their car. Their obvious carelessness is juxtaposed to Cleo's thoughtfulness and attention to detail, which is one of her most obvious character traits right from the getgo.
Although Mexico City and the family itself are experiencing hardships, there is always a hidden sliver of hope throughout the narrative. Hope is experienced through the beautiful black and white imagery of the countryside and through the playfulness of the children. Cleo's life may seem unfortunate and dismal at times, with remarks from Sofia and having to deal with her pregnancy, the scene where they family and their friends are walking through the fields is like a breath of fresh air. She remarks how it "smells like home", which depicts how she feels comfortable despite the fact that she is separated from her own village and her family. Further, the emotional moment after Cleo rescues the two children from drowning, the whole family comes together and cries in each other's arms on the shoreline. The love and appreciation that the family has for Cleo become clear in ways that it hadn't before. This family is barely functional without Cleo, yet this is the first scene where Sofia makes her aware of the gratitude she feels towards her. Because of this, Cleo is finally able to feel hopeful again.
On a personal note, I thought Roma was visually breathtaking and unlike any other film that I have watched before. My favorite shot was the one where Cleo and Pepe are laying on the roof under the sun after he tells her, "I like being dead." This shot was able to depict life for workers in Mexico City in the 70s while simultaneously capturing Cleo's innocence and childlike spirit. Roma was a new experience for me because I have never watched a subtitled movie before (I was really missing out!). This, combined with the fact that the story was very slow paced, was very interesting to me. Further, the pace of this movie was slow in a thoughtful way, it allowed characters to be defined in realistic arcs.
Overall, I give Roma a "Good, Good" rating because of Alfonso Cuaron's knack to tell his own story in an intimate realistic way and the stark black and white imagery that was breathtaking and highly defined.
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