Roma (2018)
Dir. and written by Alfonso
Cuarón
Starring
Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Jorge
Antonio Guerrero
Well, Alfonso Cuarón can
do no wrong as far as I’m concerned; his last film was one of the best films of
that year, and so was his previous one, and I have every reason to reserve a
space on that list in advance for whatever he makes next. But after the
bombastic GRAVITY, I was a little surprised to see him turn so intimate for his
next project, producing his first Spanish-language film since 2001’s Y TU MAMA
TAMBIAN, and likewise returning for the first time since that film to both his
home country (Mexico) and, after more than a decade as a fantasy/sci-fi guy, to
something resembling a realistic setting. Quite realistic, in fact, in
the sense that the film is reportedly out-and-out autobiographical, though an
autobiography with an interesting twist: it’s the story of a period of his
childhood, told from the perspective of the family’s indigenous maid, Cleo
(Yalitza Aparicio, an untrained actress of Mixtec and Triqu heritage, making
her film debut).
The result is a unique
and affecting bit of storytelling (to the extent that the film is interested in
anything that could be called a “story”), with the expected domestic drama
happening around the periphery, seen from the perspective of someone who is
deeply enmeshed with the family without exactly being part of it, while
we simultaneously examine the hidden life of someone that the world is
generally taking very little notice of. It’s about a world experienced entirely
from the outside, both by its central character and the audience; it doesn’t so
much present its characters to us as it forces us to enter their
world and experience them on their own terms. It’s a curious strategy, which
unexpectedly uses our alienation from the characters to draw us closer to them,
resulting in a deeply, almost painfully intimate immersive experience which
fiercely resists pat, easy characterization or cheap sentimentality. Though the
whole film takes place from Cleo’s perspective, we almost never directly hear
what she’s thinking and feeling -- mostly because no one ever asks, but I’m
also inclined to think there’s more to it than that. She’s so completely
powerless and detached from her life that I’m not even sure she could tell us
what she feels if she could break the fourth wall and speak directly to the
camera; she’s a character whose life is completely reactive, defined and
dominated by other characters who see her (if they see her at all) as a mere
supporting player. It’s the Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead of
low-key domestic dramas.
You could argue -- and
I’ve seen it argued-- that this is an infantilizing, even dehumanizing way
to portray an already marginalized character,* but I see it as quite the
opposite: a very honest and empathetic examination of the psychological
alienation that results from being so entirely invisible and ignored that you
begin to see yourself as a bit player in someone else’s story. Humans
are social animals, and our lives and feelings exist, to some extent, only to
the extent they can be shared. Left entirely apart from humanity, adjacent but
parallel, Cleo’s experience is curiously half-formed, like a dream related by
someone else. It’s not that she’s a cypher as a character, it’s that without an
outlet, her thoughts and feelings must remain entirely internal, unarticulated
and roughly formed. For my money, this makes for a far more intriguing approach
to the character than the weepy, hectoring melodrama this would surely have
been in someone else’s hands, though I certainly understand why some critics
felt otherwise. It’s a unique way to structure a film, at any rate, and a
testament to the profound strength of the filmmaking that something so deliberately
alienating can be so evocative and moving.
It’s little surprise
that the filmmaking is exemplary, of course, given that Cuarón’s superlative
talent is already a matter of public record. But even so, the film is full of
surprises; for something so intentionally intimate and authentic, it has a
curious tendency towards spectacle and visual poetry. In fact, Cuarón’s fussy
visual style is so fastidiously committed to capturing the chaotic detail of
real life that he ends up overshooting realism and landing in some kind of
meticulously curated hyper-realism, which seems mythic and timeless while still
evoking something that feels very honest and specific. The production is deeply
rooted in everyday reality, but it feels hypnotic and dreamlike just as often
as it feels mundane and grounded, particularly during a few bravura long takes
which wander meditatively through strange, fastidiously constructed dreamscapes
that hover just on the precipice of the surreal. You could argue that this is a
misstep which distances the audience from the gritty reality that the film
seems to think it’s offering, but for my money it just makes it that much
better. What kind of nut would stage an elaborate and jaw-dropping battle scene
in the middle of his quiet little character piece? The kind of nut who knows
his way around great damn cinema, that’s who. ROMA (the title refers to
the neighborhood in Mexico city where the family lives) may not be quite as
naturalistic as it believes itself to be (or at least as it present itself),
but what’s not in dispute is what it is: vital, patient, masterful
cinema, and very possibly a new high-water mark for one of cinema’s most
virtuosic modern auteurs.
*And the fact that it’s
a movie being made by a rich, Academy-Award-winning director about his childhood
maid doesn’t exactly help matters, regardless of how much affection and
sympathy he obviously has for her.
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