Bryden Doyle | Contributor
Featured Image: Alfonso Cuarón talks about the process of making this movie. | Bryden Doyle
Inspired by his memories of growing up in Mexico in the early 1970s, Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Roma’ is a passion project for the writer-director, who shot for 108 days and did six months of research to ensure the details were accurate to the period.
Cuarón’s truthfulness as a storyteller is evident in this rich, heart-rending, and gorgeous film.
Second-year film production student Paul Villenave also called the film “a slice of life masterpiece of the most ultra-heightened reality pie I’ve eaten this year.”
The film’s central figure is Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), a live-in servant for Sofia (Marina de Tavira) and her young children. Sofia regularly emphasizes Cleo’s status as a servant and scolds her for minor mistakes, but Cleo still cares for the family like they’re her own.
Cleo’s life is thrown into disarray when her martial artist boyfriend Fermín (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) impregnates her and deserts her at the first chance he gets. In a parallel storyline, Sofia’s philandering husband abandons her, leaving her to hold down the fort by herself.
Incredibly, Yalitza Aparicio, who plays Cleo, is an untrained, first-time performer. Although the film portrays an exceptionally cruel world, Aparicio avoids playing Cleo as a victim, exuding an air of serenity that suggests she will survive. After bottling her emotions for much of the film, Cleo’s eventual emotional outpouring is gut-wrenching.
Stage actress Marina de Tavira is equally strong as Sofia, showing the vulnerability underneath her severity that allows viewers to empathize with her struggle every step of the way.
The children are side characters, but their interactions are no less authentic, such as how they tease and bicker with each other at dinner. Cuarón further humanizes them through heartbreaking scenes such as the one where the middle child learns of his parents’ separation by eavesdropping on his mom.
At the post-screening Q&A, Cuarón described the film’s look as “tactile impressions.” Shot in black and white on digital 65, Cuarón captures fleeting moments in nature (e.g. floating dust particles illuminated by the sun) to make the surroundings look, and feel more vivid.
Also working as the cinematographer, Cuarón films in long static or slowly rotating shots, guiding the viewer’s gaze and making them more observant of what’s on-screen. When Fermín walks out on Cleo in a darkened theatre, Cuarón’s camera focuses on her profile for several long minutes as she awaits his return, before she turns to the camera, her face silently conveying an awful realization.
What’s wonderful about the film is that something’s always happening in the background. Such gems include newlyweds getting their picture taken at a restaurant and a man being shot out of a cannon. Moments like these make the world feel more lived-in
and it’s rare when one can imagine the background players existing so fully off-camera.
The film is dedicated to the woman who inspired the character of Cleo, and asks us to recognize and honour her and all those who exist on life’s fringes.
