Review of Roma (2018) by Alan W — 06 Dec 2018

Alfonso Cuarón's love letter to his childhood in the Mexico City suburb of Roma in the early 70s is a 2hrs+ film in Spanish and Mixtec, shot in black and white, with a mix of professionals and non-actors, a young newcomer as the lead in her first acting job, and an ambitious and daring project that delivers both technically and emotionally.

With a treasure trove of exquisite and powerfully symbolic visual imageries, meticulously derived from everyday life, the film tells a simple and intimate story of a live-in young maid working for a middle class family of 4 children and a dog badly in need of house training, that's based mostly on Cuarón's memory of his upbringing.

Using slow pans and long takes and no musical score, it creates a contemplative and observational atmosphere, and allows the audience to take in all the minute details in the fore and background of this film, some meaningful and reflective, others amusing but more random.

The beautiful monochrome cinematography not only invokes a sense of romantic nostalgia but also the stylishness of a Fellini or some other neo-realist director. Cuarón's bold and very personal project can be brutal (and brutally funny) at times, for example, the surreal and funny ice cream eating scene which is also one of the saddest I have seen on-screen; and even though the film does meander, say during the New Year party section, there is still much to savour in the nuance and poetry of it all, and this tremendously affecting film resonates much more than I expected it to, even for someone brought up the other side of the world from Mexico.

Unmissable, whatever size screen you see it in (though bigger is better).