Wiping the Slate Clean in Roma

Released in late 2018, Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma immediately received swathes of plaudits from high-ranking critics all around the globe. On the back of a number of victories at the BAFTAs in early February, Cuaron went on to receive the award for Best Director at the Oscars last month. I wrote this piece upon its original Netflix release and have since seen it on the big screen at the Prince Charles too. Due to how accessible this brilliant film is, I’ve tried to keep this piece as concise & spoiler-free as possible…

Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma is a touching autobiographical family saga that concerns itself with poignant themes of stagnation, upheaval and abandonment.

The director of well-loved classics such as Gravity and Y Tu Mama Tambien, in Roma, Cuaron revisits his own upbringing and the potent undercurrents that permeated it.

Set during the early ‘70s in Mexico City’s affluent Colonia Roma district, Cuaron’s story has a backdrop of political violence and economic hardship.

From the outset we are introduced to Cuaron’s stoic protagonist, Cleo – the young housekeeper of the distinctly middle-class Sofia household. The perfect nuclear family, Sofia, her husband, Doctor Antonio, and their numerous children, live in a large house in a quirky, friendly neighbourhood. Tending to the family’s every need, Cleo establishes close bonds with almost every family member.

However, as Cleo finds romance with a troubled young man named Fermin, Sofia’s marriage with Antonio falls apart. Leaving under the pretext of a research trip to Quebec, Antonio abandons his family and leaves Sofia to pick up the pieces. Although, this becomes just another chore for Cleo to add to her list.

Cuaron’s Roma is a story of subtleties, where meaning is often gleaned from what’s going on in the background. Much like his 2006 masterpiece, Children of Men, Cuaron employs a number of innovative camera techniques that provide the viewer with an immersive insight into the family’s lives.

But, unlike some of his other films, Roma isn’t wholly defined by one set of particular techniques, the film is a rich tapestry that has been sewn together using a number of complementary elements – Cuaron’s own cache of memories being one of the most instrumental.

Speaking about the film in Variety prior to its release, Cuaron said, “I was a white, middle-class, Mexican kid living in this bubble. I didn’t have an awareness. I [had] what your parents tell you — that you have to be nice to people who are less privileged than you and all of that — but you’re in your childhood universe.”

This wish to revisit the past with a newfound understanding is central to the premise of Roma. With Cleo as the film’s central character, Cuaron overhauls the governing ideologies of his upbringing and looks at the city’s past from a different angle.

Following Cleo’s story, the film touches on a host of different episodes such as Mexico’s Dirty War and the horrors of the Corpus Christi massacre in 1971.

Yet, these violent undercurrents, while intriguing, are not the film’s central focus. For, Cuaron’s Roma is ultimately a sensory experience, where narrative devices such as street sounds and domestic detail treat us to a unique portrayal of how strife and hardship can be conquered by stoicism and strength.

Roma is deeply cyclical in the way that it ends in the same way it begins – with a return to work and a distant aeroplane flying overhead, vaguely offering the idea of freedom and escape. Much like Cleo’s work, Cuaron wipes the slate clean in Roma and produces a mesmerising display of ground-breaking Mexican cinema.