Review of Roma (2018) by Bob K — 22 Dec 2018

I really had to think about this one. You won't see a more beautifully filmed movie this year, or most years. Masterful photography. But what else is really happening here, and what are we meant to think about it? Is there anything deeper going on, then personal stories, a tragedy and near-tragedy, among an upper-middle class family in the "Roma" neighborhood of Mexico City?

Manhattan is a part of New York City, and Woody Allen made an incredible film with that title, and with the techniques you see here. A large canvas, with actors often taking up less then half the screen, with the remainder so busy that you forget what to focus on.

There's the backdrop of upheaval. Things are happening around the family that are not explained to the audience, but one knows that Mexico in that period, like Paris in 1968, was in political turmoil. Or if you didn't know that, you'll intuit it.

One note - this film has a particular medical sequence that was as unbearable for me to watch as any horror movie. There's no closure here for those events, except for a rather facile admission by Cleo later on, about what she had really wished for.

My inner Marxist critic wants to rise up and shout "foul!" As in, how can you use such dramatic times as nothing more than backdrop, which elucidates nothing? But I have no problem giving this film a strong 4 stars, for striking images which will last a long while.