Review of Roma (2018) by Gregory E — 01 Dec 2018

During the first hour of "Roma", Alfonso Cuarón displays a stunning collection of frames that automatically appeal to nostalgia.

This film marked the first time Cuarón had a credit as director of photography, and he filled each shot with a subtle but impossible to ignore symbolic charge: The hallway that gradually fills with dog shit, no matter how many times it's cleaned (the hidden family situation). The plane that roams the city every 40 seconds (the sensation of something big happening outside this microcosmos). The big but precise Galaxy car of the patriarch who in the hands of the tenacious divorced mother (and the other great heroine of this story) suffers some blows. It's simply a beautiful piece of cinema.

Cuarón's strategy is amazing. Just when one begins to brand the film as a beautiful and artistic work with a rather simple and no-drama script, the Mexican director begins to unleash the emotional blows. We have already acclimated to the dynamics of this middle-class family of the Roma neighborhood, and we will now begin to feel its setbacks. Especially those of Cleo, the "maid".

Cuarón has her on a somewhat patronizing and naive pedestal. Cleo is the absolute representative of the "poor and noble Mexican people" who almost silently endures insults and affection. Cleo only enjoys small bursts of happiness in the small breaks between work duties. Cuarón isn't even able to show her enjoying her sex life, even when the climax of the film revolves around her unwanted pregnancy.

Of course, "Roma" feeds on its historical context. His characters live between earthquakes, songs from Los Pasteles Verdes, "Siempre En Domingo" episodes, and tragic incidents such as El Halconazo. Cuarón also makes clear how his past marked his career, like in that sequence where the family goes to the movies to watch "Marooned" (an experience also marked by the discovery of the infidelity of the father), which evidently is a nod to "Gravity ".

"Roma", of course, will always be marked by the privilege of his creator. Cuarón's memories are those of an affectionate friend/adopted son who cannot escape from the reality of being a small patron.

But Cuarón--we don't know if inspired by his reality or not--ends up at least humanizing that employer-employee relationship to the extreme. Cleo will continue cleaning and taking care of the children, but her role in the new family structure is absolutely indispensable: she will forever be a silent and stoic heroine who, to the extent of her limited ambition and possibilities, seems to have achieved peace in a family nucleus.

Is that a bittersweet fate? definitely. But "Roma" seems to come from a voice that is at least woke enough to portray the story in that way, without irreversibly falling into a useless "white guilt.".