There's a noteworthy sequence about two thirds of the way into Alfonso Cuarón's near-universally lauded period film, "Roma," in which a prominent Mexican luchador visits a martial arts training facility and instructs his spectators to close their eyes while lifting their legs and extending their arms over their heads. It’s a rather underwhelming demonstration given the young disciples’ reactions, but when they themselves try to imitate the same move, nobody — except for the film's lead, Cleo — can pull it off without losing their poise. After viewing the film for a second time (the first in theaters, then at home), this scene seems to echo Mr. Cuarón's feelings about the state of film in 2018; after a wildly successful 2013 sci-fi space epic, "Gravity," the "Y Tu Mamá También" and "Children of Men" director settled on a rather unorthodox V.O.D. path for distributing his most recent and memorable film to date. "Roma," a black and white movie starring teacher-turned-actress Yalitza Aparicio, feels like a small story told on a grand scale, a macro-political family drama which centers around the lower class indigenous help of a well-to-do, upper-crust household in Mexico City neighborhood, La Roma. It is a simultaneous voyage back home and departure for the 57-year-old Mexican director, in attempting to simultaneously understand himself he also sheds light on some unpleasant truths about his native country, its shadowy government, and the ongoing division between class and race which remains inexorably palpable, color or not.
Cuarón's previous Oscar-winning film, which was set in space against the backdrop of an unforgiving and unyielding celestial void, is so distant from "Roma" that it almost feels as if it was made by a poles apart studio-for-hire director. Yet that is also what makes the ‘Three Amigos’ (Cuarón, Iñarrítu and Del Toro) such storytelling aficionados in both mainstream Hollywood and indie film circles. Unlike other seasoned auteurs like Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, The Coen Brothers, P.T. Anderson, Quentin Tarantino, Spike Lee, David Fincher and Yorgos Lanthimos (all fine filmmakers but whose work has an indelible trademark® style rarely abandoned), Mexico's latest cinematic triumvirate resists traditional classification; Iñarrítu leapt from irreverent "Birdman" to hard-as-nails "The Revenant," Del Toro rebounded from "Pacific to Rim" to "Shape of Water," and in choosing "Roma" as his follow-up to "Gravity" (the same artist who burst onto the scene with 2001’s "Y Tu Mamá Tambien" before settling on "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban"), Cuarón too has cemented himself as one of the industry's greatest risk takers — abandoning a discernible aesthetic and neo-thematic parlance in favor of some artistic risk-making. It's no wonder "Roma," much like “Shape of Water,” “Birdman” and "Revenant" (all Oscar winners by the way) feel so alive. They're created by visionary directors who love every facet of the movies they see, just like the young Italian lad who discovers Cinema Paradiso, and aren't frightened by failure as much as they are by repetition. Sure, not everything in "Roma" works (Cuarón describes the film as “anti-narrative”), but it sure as hell leaves a mark on its viewers in ways few films (especially in black and white) have in quite some time.
Given our nation’s hateful rhetoric as of late, whether it’s Trump demanding a government shutdown over a border wall, or Fox News' unabashed race-baiter Tucker Carlson declaring immigration makes the United States "dirtier," it’s important for a film like "Roma" to disrupt the natural order — it has already been placed on the shortlist for Best Foreign Language film at the Academy Awards after a dual run in theaters and on Netflix, and its breakout star has graced the cover of this month's Vogue Mexico (the first ever indigenous woman to do so). The vast chasm however, between the saintliness of Cleo's character (based on Cuarón's actual live-in nanny, Libo) and the rest of his family, who come across as multi-layered characters with real arcs — renders the lead a passive figure as one tragic event after the next befalls her. If Cuarón means to imply that a woman like Libo exists as an inert figure in her own movie [of life] would be patronizing while unequivocally (and painfully) astute. Indigenous communities in Mexico and Central America have been robbed of many things; their land, their identity, their culture, their labor, their agency and means to control their lives’ outcomes. That Cleo is deprived of these elements as well, even in her own film, says a lot about the man behind the camera. Is he truly as woke as he thinks he is? Or is he merely trying to piece together the rambling memories of his childhood, distilled through the eyes of the only woman who actually gave a damn? This familial dependency pitting slaves against their slave masters is an often icy, uncomfortable relationship which can never truly be disentangled, no matter how many times the spell gets broken. “Roma” is hardly a political rebuke nor a call for systemic change, it is merely a snapshot of youthful bliss, filtered by a gilded, unencumbered, and ignorant exuberance. It is also, un-ironically, an anagram of Amor.
"ROMA" a.k.a. “La Guerra Su-Su-Sucia” Rated R. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes.
