In Case You Haven't Heard: 2018

WHEN IN ROMA

Alfonso Cuarón's most personal film to date is also one of 2018's best

 “Hey. I like being dead.”

Welp. My heart has been fed to a door shredder to the point that even Mike Wazowski cannot repair it.

  *PROLOGUE*

Everyone tells me I write too much. I get it. But to be fair I only write this much nonsense about movies because movies are the only things on the planet I have an emotional connection with. People? PAH. A movie about a Spanish maid cleaning up dog poo? THERE’S my heart.

This weekend Alfonso Cuarón awoke from his five-year hibernation to remind me why movies make me want to be alive.

To those who end up reading these descents into madness to the end, I am forever in your debt.

Thank you.

* * * * *

  Inspired by his own life growing up in Mexico City; by taking a nosedive into his roots, and by dialing back on plot, dialogue, music and color tone, Alfonso Cuarón has poured his literal heart into Roma; his soul dripping into every frame, and it is not just his most personal and intimate film to date but perhaps also his best.

  (Actually. Scratch that. So long as Children of Men exists cinema will have peaked and nothing else will stand a chance.)

  Like Scorsese with Silence, Cuarón seems to have been building his entire career to this very film.

  Shot on lush 65MM black & white film, staged to the streets of 1970s Mexico City, Roma has NO business looking as authentic as it does. With gorgeous cinematography that ranges from up close shots of the wrinkles in the actor’s faces down to the beautiful backdrop of raw life in Mexico nearly 50 years ago, watching Roma is like flipping through an old photo album.

(An album filled with awkward memories like that time your BF was wielding a makeshift samurai sword buck naked in the bedroom!)

  The frames of Mexico City are filled with such an ethnic portrayal of astounding detail, the visual scale doesn’t even appear to be a recreation of the past rather than an actual depiction of 70s Colonia Roma were Cuarón showing the world documented footage of a bygone era. This shit it so real it feels like the work of a goddamn time-traveler. You can practically SMELL the dingy air of these 1970s niños. 

  The attention to the obscurity alone; the background - the construction of the rundown buildings; the foreground - the children running in the streets; the nuance in unnoticeable specs - the contrast in outfits and cars; for God’s sake, even the cracks in the tiles of the floor; these are all elements that feel like a complete ode to the past.

  Speaking of floor tiles, the opening silent five minute intro to the film sets the ENTIRE mood for the one-hundred-and-thirty minutes that follow.

(A BOLD move for the occasional Netflix viewer who dabbles with 5% crime shows, 95% marathons of The Office and Parks and Recreation for our eleventh run-through of the entire series - YES NETFLIX, WE ARE STILL WATCHING).

  The opening static shot of a home tile floor being cleaned while the credits fade in, staged NOT to a classic Latin overture, but to the soundtrack of only dogs barking and birds chirping; the engine of an airplane flying overhead; a plane that can scarcely be seen in the reflection of a pool of water on the floor; moments that demand patience though may seem insignificant, and are doomed to be painstakingly fast-forwarded by impatient Netflix streamers; the quiet environment is a bold act of Cuarón absorbing his audience in the nuance of an era. He wants his viewers to soak up every second of his world of Mexico City, even when seemingly absolutely nothing is happening.

  And for those counting, yes there are large gaps in the film where “nothing is happening,” but this also isn’t a film designed for balloon poppers who are trying to ruin our days.

  The beauty in a film like Roma is in its clash of themes. Through the eyes of a quiet house maid Cuarón depicts a fractured family; a middle class wife who devotes the same amount of care to her children as a husband does attempting to park his obnoxiously large luxury car into a tight driveway space; an environment where the dog shits everywhere and the most frustrating day-to-day conflict is cleaning it up.

(And those who clean up dog shit on the reg KNOW the struggle is real)

  Roma is filled with moments where there’s not much plot and the lack of “story” will no doubt leave many viewers leaving wanting more, but this is also not a film at all focused on what’s happening in a linear story line rather than how the characters are reacting to the crumbling world around them. 

  There are endless scenes of intimate joys that are juxtaposed with the terrors of the world; the announcement of a pregnancy is quite LITERALLY interrupted by an earthquake. A New Years celebration is called short due to a breakout of forest fires. And it is not the fires that Alfonso is focused on rather than the attention to a man who sings a peaceful song as the clock strikes midnight while the townspeople, old, young, women and children, come together to put these fires out. 

  This isn’t a film at all about a plot rather than the brief glimpses into the humanity or lack of, from the people of Mexico City.

AND IT IS GODDAMN BEAUTIFUL AND HEARTBREAKING ALL AT ONCE.

  Where the housemaids giggling while performing their evening stretches are scenes designed to showcase the embrace of life’s little nuances; the quiet moments of the maids singing sweet songs to the children as they sleep, or even “playing dead” with the kids are constructed to show their parental significance, these are moments shattered by scenes of men yelling at women as an aggressive reminder that they are beneath them; that they are filth.

  Cuarón very deliberately paints a a world where men are mysoginistic pigs and women have no choice but to survive with them (so not much has changed over the last half a century). Husbands are scumbags and dads are deadbeats. Even the portrayal of an intense male martial arts session is capitulated by one of the film’s most verbally abusive moments against a woman, and it’s more painful to watch than the physical violence committed by the riots in the streets by aggressive protestors.

  Sure Cuarón has plenty of loud political statements to make with his little picture, whether the empowerment of women be a reflection of the MeToo movement, or be it a violent protest that feels perhaps frighteningly close to the Charlottesville riots; whether these undertones, overtones and all in the middle tones were Cuarón’s intention, he’s still shouting statements from an era nearly half a century ago that’s as bold in 2018 as it was in 1971. 

  Roma is staged to a time of war both physically and personally, and the Mexican filmmaker is using this time to paint a very ugly world that beautiful characters live in.

Cliff notes:
Women are beautiful, men are terrible, and we really gotta stop being assholes.

  Cuarón marinates his audience in the world of Roma before building to a completely unleashed inner turmoil within the film’s final act, and while the artistic brilliance of making viewers wait to feel their feelings is of course thanks to the Mexican writer-director, the emotional impact almost entirely rests on his lead actress Yalitza Aparicio who turns Cleo into perhaps the most heartbreaking and sympathetic cinematic character in all of 2018.

  Considering the amount of talent here, the fact that this is Aparicio’s debut role is absolutely insane. Her performance is so dialed back that you can feel all of Cleo’s emotions through just the look in her eyes. By focusing on a low class maid Cuarón isn’t breaking new ground in character, but by keeping Cleo as silent as he does; and for Aparicio to move mountains with such a sweet, somber role is the stuff that dares to make a grown man cry and be proud to declare it (admittedly held back tears more than once).

  The notion of Cleo being constantly kicked when she’s down is a running theme of the film, but for Aparicio to keep the character as selfless and humble as she is tugs on heartstrings that even the most bleak human being wouldn’t be aware they had. 

  Cleo’s determination to be strong; her devotion to a group of children that aren’t even hers; all while perpetually being harassed, insulted, put down; it’s the kinda thing that reminds audiences what a good human looks like even though as history repeatedly shows, bad things often happen to good people.

  There’s a “goodbye” scene in the middle act of the film that’s easily one of the most heart wrenching moments of 2018’s films. Aparicio doesn’t just sell the scene with the confidence of a real person but displays raw emotion in a way that feels like Cuarón is ripping the audience’s heart from their chest and shattering it to a thousand pieces.

  When people say Roma is heartbreaking it’s not subjective. MUCH of the film is the Mexican filmmaker trying to to tear down the emotional barrier of his viewers scene by scene.

  But like any roller coaster of a busy city; the ups and downs juxtaposed by noise and silence all at once, Cuarón is also embracing the intimacies of life to strike the chords of humanity, even if just through the beach scene alone.

  Cuarón’s film may be hailed a modern day masterpiece but more importantly it’s an authentic statement of history, and a defining portrait that exemplifies why anyone cares about any character in any film ever; why a character like Cleo is so powerful with no dialogue, where nearly any male character is utterly slimy with TONS of dialogue.

 With his latest, Cuarón is giving his audience a taste of history while basking in the beauty of history’s moments. Roma is a goddamned TREASURE CHEST of moments and all of the feelings that come with them, even if just from the perspective of a poor maid girl who’s just trying to live her best life. And for that it is a sad, sweet, sincere piece of broken humane artistry, and it deserves our utmost respect.

* * * * *

*EPILOGUE*

That beach sequence by the way, was one of the most genuinely moving moments I’ve had in cinema, in ALL of 2018. Not since Eighth Grade had I realized I was even a person with people feelings. Dammit did this movie make me feel feelings and I felt it right in the feels.

*50 points to Yalitza Aparicio

*200 points to Cuarón

Curse you Cuarón, you beautiful Mexican starfish.