{"id":3826,"date":"2016-07-14T18:22:18","date_gmt":"2016-07-14T12:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3826"},"modified":"2016-07-14T18:22:18","modified_gmt":"2016-07-14T12:52:18","slug":"roma-review-alfonso-cuaron","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3826","title":{"rendered":"Roma Review: Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n Masterfully Captures the Memory of Childhood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

T<\/span><\/p>he opening sequence of Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s affecting <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i> \u2013 Mexico\u2019s Foreign Film submission for the Oscars \u2013 is nothing less than a modern-day cinematic marvel. <\/span>\n\nShot in black and white and large-format digital, the film opens with a lingering shot of floor tiles on the driveway of a house located in the eponymous district in 1970<\/span> Mexico<\/span><\/a> City. The floor is soon flush with soapy water and an airplane is reflected in it: Languid waves twirl around in such choreographed detail as if rehearsing its one last dance before being mopped away. <\/span>\n\nCuar\u00f3n\u2019s camera (the director makes his cinematography debut with <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i>) ensures the mundaneness of cleaning floors is elevated into a cinematic performance. And he demands that the viewer confronts a maid\u2019s<\/span> labour<\/span><\/a> \u2013 physical, emotional, and mental \u2013 that is de rigueur for a clean slate. Of a floor or for a family.<\/span>\n\nSet in an upscale neighbourhood, much of the autobiographical (and supremely well-acted and staged) <\/span>Roma <\/span><\/i>unfolds inside the confines of a sprawling house where Cleo (newcomer <\/span>Yalitza Aparicio),<\/span> a housekeeper works. Cleo\u2019s employers are an upper-middle-class family spanning three generations. The loving grandmother, the grieving mother, the absent father, and the family\u2019s four children \u2013 a girl and three boys (one of whom is based on Cuar\u00f3n). On the surface, <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i> has a one-line plot: Shadowing the quotidian world of one family whose existence is upended by a series of life-altering events. There\u2019s heartbreak, separation, tears, <\/span>pregnancy, <\/span><\/a>death, and a bittersweet vacation coursing through the film\u2019s 135-minute-long runtime. <\/span>\n\nYet <\/span>Roma\u2019s<\/span><\/i> irresistibility arises from the confusion about the film\u2019s real protagonist. Is it the grief and confusion of Sofia, the reluctant single <\/span>mother<\/span><\/a>? Or the silent stability that Cleo bestows on their lives at the cost of personal tragedies? And if <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i> does attempt to have a housekeeper at the forefront \u2013 why does Cleo never lash out for having to drain every bit of herself to heal the family? If she really is the hero of the story, why is Cleo then rendered such a passive participant in her own life? Why does the camera merely follow her, instead of allowing her singular perspective to guide the film?<\/span>\n

It\u2019s also why Roma highlights Cleo\u2019s labour: she is up before anyone else, wakes up the kids, cleans the houses, mops floors, cleans dog poop.<\/blockquote>\n\u00a0\n\nThese aren\u2019t questions that <\/span>Cuar\u00f3n<\/span>, the writer, cinematographer, editor, or director shies away from. Instead, he entertains them, as he flits between erasing the line between who gets to be at the centre of the story and who gets shipped to the background. <\/span>\n\nThe result is <\/span>Roma, <\/span><\/i>a moving cinematic accomplishment that doesn\u2019t rest at imitating or recreating life but manages something very rare: It captures the depths of memory. The film is driven solely from the eyes of Cuar\u00f3n, as a child. And for a child, there exists no demarcation between the foreground and the background.<\/span>\n\nIt explains the childlike interpretation, devoid of reading in between the lines, of almost every catastrophe that plagues <\/span>Roma.<\/span><\/i> In one scene, one of the boys casually tells his family about seeing a soldier shoot a kid who was throwing water balloons at an army jeep while sitting for a meal. His story becomes a mere voiceover as the camera zooms in on Cleo\u2019s hands preparing food. In an adult version, this scene would be staged around the brutality of the incident \u2013 but in Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s <\/span>memory<\/span><\/a>, it\u2019s just an accompaniment to their food. <\/span>\n\nEven their father\u2019s indifference is treated with a sort of nonchalance that can only be possible when it comes out of a child yet to grasp the significance of an absent father. In one of the film\u2019s most heartbreaking moments, Cleo\u2019s teary confession to Sofia is interrupted by her caregiving duties. And in the film\u2019s two most spectacular scenes involving <\/span>hospital<\/span><\/a> and waves, Cleo\u2019s loss isn\u2019t painted as just hers; instead it is a collective hurdle. <\/span>\n\nYet the most intimate evidence of how Cuar\u00f3n does justice to the memories of his younger self lies in the fact that the adults in <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i> are all <\/span>women<\/span><\/a>. As kids, our maternal figures are all that we see, comprehend, and depend on for the first ten years of our life. And <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i> suggests exactly that \u2013 focusing on the female bonding that is indispensable to raising children. <\/span>\n\nIt\u2019s also why <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i> highlights Cleo\u2019s labour: She is up before anyone else, wakes up the <\/span>kids<\/span><\/a>, cleans the houses, mops floors, cleans dog poop. And the limitations of her labour: She has to sneak out to live a life of her own. She is suddenly asked to make tea during a family movie night. She saves one of the kids while being unable to save herself from the guilt and deals with a gut-wrenching loss from the shadows. But we never get a chance to see her react to it or protest for her own space \u2013 and right \u2013 to grieve. <\/span>\n\nWith <\/span>Roma<\/span><\/i>, Cuar\u00f3n attempts to show how he saw Cleo as the parent he could depend on; the parent he didn’t have to worry about. Because kids don\u2019t see maids as outsiders or label them by their labour. After all, children don\u2019t define their family by blood.<\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s autobiographical Roma doesn\u2019t simply imitate or recreate life in an upscale neighbourhood in 1970 Mexico City. Instead the black-and-white spectacle captures the memory of childhood, in unflinching clarity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":103,"featured_media":3827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[7165,26,2023,1788,7166],"class_list":["post-3826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop-culture","tag-alfonso-cuaron","tag-cinema","tag-movie","tag-review","tag-roma"],"yoast_head":"\nRoma Review: Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n Masterfully Captures the Memory of Childhood<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Alfonso Cuar\u00f3n\u2019s autobiographical Roma doesn\u2019t simply imitate or recreate life in an upscale neighbourhood in 1970 Mexico City. 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