Mark Reviews Movies: ROMA (2018)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 6, 2018

One could argue that Roma is Alfonso Cuarón's most personal film, if only because he has taken on the tasks of cinematographer, co-editor, writer, and director (not to mention serving as one of the producers) in order to realize this story. Some will look at his choice of the film's main character as an act of generosity and humility, especially considering that the era of this tale lines up with the filmmaker's own childhood.

It could have been about him or a fictional counterpart, but instead, this is the story of a household servant, living with but distinctly apart from a well-to-do family in Mexico City. Cuarón or his likeness might be present here, but like the other members of the family for whom this servant works, his possible stand-in exists mostly in the background.

The central figure is Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, a non-professional actor, making an impressive debut), who works for the family of a doctor and a teacher. The family is undergoing a progression of radical changes, as the father (played by Fernando Grediaga) departs with no intention of returning. Sofia (Marina de Tavira), the wife, is left in charge of the home.

The country is going through some significant changes, too, as we eventually realize that one, seemingly innocent group of young men, learning martial arts in the countryside, actually has another purpose. We might even look at a brief stay at the hacienda of an extended family member as a sign of that imminent clash. It's a days-long party to ring in the year 1971, and the guests spend part of one of those days shooting targets with pistols.

Change is violent—physically, emotionally, psychologically, or all three of those things and/or more. Violence is inevitably change, too. Cleo's life has been, as far as we can tell, free of either change or violence. She spends her days doing household chores, ensuring that the family has everything it needs or wants without questioning any demand. The most violence she has received is overhearing complaints about the house being a mess or a scolding for failing to keep the home's walkway/garage clean of the excrement of a family dog that seems to produce a lot of it. She could not clean that floor quickly or frequently enough, even if she wanted to.

Somehow, that seems like the perfect metaphor for Cleo's life in this family and within society—cleaning up messes for other people, so that they can go on ignoring what's happening, yet always failing in the eyes of those people in some way. It's not her fault. The messes just keep piling up, until they're too much to ignore. Somebody has to be blamed. It might as well be the maid.

With all of the possible angles from which to look at this era, it is admirable that Cuarón has chosen to see this familial and social change and violence from Cleo's perspective and through her experience. One's appreciation for the story he's telling and how he's telling it will depend on patience with a mostly eventless story and a keen awareness of how exacting Cuarón's form is.

Most importantly, it depends on the extent to which one can overlook that the filmmaker's combination of observational storytelling and pristine filmmaking essentially has created a romantic ode to servitude. The story extols the virtues of and within realism, but the form of the film turns it into something quite apart from the real world. Basically, Cuarón has romanticized the realism out of the character.

Cleo's story is completely unromantic. It's one of love gained and just as quickly lost to Fermín (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) and, as a result, of an unexpected pregnancy. Through it all, she still works for Sofia and takes on an even more important role in the eyes of her employers' children—as a constant of love, while their mother deals with the emotional fallout of being rejected by her husband.

Cuarón tells this simple story in long takes, with straightforward pans, and through crystalline black-and-white cinematography. It is achingly beautiful to watch, especially in moments, such as the opening shot of water on a tile floor reflecting upwards to a skylight, in which the mundane becomes almost abstract (A shot on the rooftops in the family's neighborhood, where servants like Cleo are washing and hanging laundry, has that quality, too).

Complementing those images is an always busy, living soundscape. The city bustles with music and murmuring voices, as cars move in the distances and jets fly overhead in the promise—or a taunt—of some place far away from here. As the social upheaval in the background and Cleo's own story come to a climax, those sounds—gunshots and terrorized screams, the cacophony of car horns in a jammed tunnel, the calm voices of doctors and the cries of patients in one hospital room becoming only Cleo's cries in another—become as much a propelling force as the narrative itself.

This story is ultimately tragic in obvious ways (Aparicio's performance in the film's key scene is heartbreaking, especially juxtaposed against the routine ways of the people behind her), but Roma attempts to find some hope in the ways that Cleo is connected to this family and vice versa. The problem, perhaps, is that Cuarón has such a rose-tinted view of the character and, in the end, her importance to this family that he misses the fact that even his optimistic ending arrives at a different kind of tragedy. While life may change, it continues, and that's a reason for hope. Here, though, he ignores how life doesn't change, which adds an uncomfortable layer to a lovely piece of filmmaking.

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