ROMA

Mexico, 2018, 135 minutes, Black and white.
Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Rivera.
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron

Roma? Rome Italy? No, this Roma is a middle-class section of Mexico City. The setting is the early 1970s.

In fact, this film is a fictionalised memoir written by the director, Alfonzo:Cuaron (who has had quite a varied career with films in his native Mexico as well is a broad, a version of The Little Princess, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, P.D.James Children of Men, and Oscar for his direction of Gravity).

Roma has received quite a number of awards, including the Golden Lion in Venice, 2018, and Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. (And, it could be noted that Roma won the SIGNIS (World Catholic Association for Communication) award in Venice.)

Technically, the film has won great acclaim for its qualities in black-and-white photography and its use of 65 mm film. It is a reminder of how much can be achieved and the beauty of black-and-white photography.

The film is quite episodic in its structure, a series of events that takes place over a year, events for a middle-class family, a devoted mother, her shock at her husband leaving her and her pretence that he is away in Canada on research, her four children, three boys and a little girl. The audience is taken inside the family, sharing the details of its life.

While the family events provide the framework for the film, the focus is on the young maid, Cleo, an indigenous woman from a village, only moderately educated, employed as a servant, but the children devoted to her. She figures in the episodes, the film providing a portrait of Cleo (expertly portrayed by Yalitza Aparicio), a contrast to the Hispania-Mexican? family in her slight appearance, her quiet and respectful manner.

Many have rightly commented that the film invites the audience into this world and immerses it in the world. There are episodes in the home. There is an episode where a big group of families goes on a holiday together, extroverted jollity, then everybody being called on to put out some forest fires at the back of the house.

On the personal side, Cleo has an encounter with a young man who vainly demonstrates his progress in martial arts. When she goes to the cinema with him and tells him that she is pregnant, he disappears, although she tracks him down at an extended sequence out in the countryside of people watching a large group of young men, going through their martial arts paces, presided over by a Guru who asks them to do a simple movement, hands joined above their heads, one leg on eighth I and keeping balance – most of them are unable to do this but, in a quite simple way, Cleo achieves this.

There are scenes at the hospital where the sympathetic mother of the family takes Cleo and she is treated well by the doctor – and this will be repeated later in the film when Cleo gives birth. The background to this sequence of birth is quite powerful, Cleo going to a fashionable store for the family to buy her a cot for the baby, watching crowds of young people outside, joining for a protest, watching the police attack from the store windows, some of the young people pursuing others through the store (including the violent father of Cleo’s baby). There is shooting, traffic is jammed, and urgency to get Cleo to the hospital.

There is a sequence towards the end when the mother takes the children, invites Cleo to the children’s acclaim, to go to the seaside where she explains the family situation to the children. When they go into the surf, they go out too far and Cleo, who does not swim, quietly goes out to save them and bring them in.

A synopsis of the film might not seem too exciting but there is a humanity about the situations and characters, the memories of the director, which make an emotional impact.

And, at the end, the film is dedicated to Libo. In fact, she is the servant in the Cuaron family life whose life and devotion is dramatised on screen as Cleo.


1. Acclaim? Awards?

2. A memoir, Mexico, the early 1970s? Immersing the audience in the times, the atmosphere, Mexican atmosphere? Family, middle-class, servants? The range of activities over one year?

3. The director, his life and career, the memoir indicating the influences (and the scenes from Marooned and his thought to become an astronaut, his making Gravity?).

4. The cinema techniques, the quality of the black-and-white photography, using 65 mm? The wide range of music used?

5. The film is episodic, the cumulative effect, emotion in the period, the Mexican perspectives, life and issues?

6. Cleo at the centre of the film, the indigenous maid, the other servants and the use of indigenous language? Her age, coming from the village, leaving her mother (and apprehensive about her mother seeing her pregnant)? The government going to the village, taking the land? Cleo becoming a servant, working with the other servants?

7. The household, Sofi, her husband absent on research in Canada, the four children, the three boys, the girl, their ages? The various tasks in the household? Cleo and the details of her waking the children, the meals, bonding with them, care for them, and devotion to her?

8. Chloe and the encounter with Fermin, his martial arts, naked demonstration, the sexual encounter, her pregnancy, going to the cinema, her telling him, his abandoning her, the finding where he trained in the martial arts, being present, observing, talking with him, his abusive behaviour? Later seeing Ferman and the violence against the protesters? Her hesitation in explaining her pregnancy to Sofi, Sofi taking her to the doctor, the consideration by the doctor and medical staff, the examination, the months of her pregnancy, not telling her mother?

9. Sofi, the mother, the four children, at home, the fashionable life, the servants? Her husband, his leaving, deception, his mistress? With the four children and her devotion? Her work as a teacher, her mother’s presence in the house and support? The effect of her husband leaving, his lies, not sending any money, her having to manage?

10. The Christmas gathering, all the families together, the big number, joy and celebration, meals, clowns, dancing? The impact of the five, the forest, the people and their combining to put out the fire?

11. Cleo, her relationship with Sofi, with the children? Sofi in the car, going between the two trucks and scraping the vehicle, crashing into it as she drove into the narrow pathway? The later decision to buy the new car, smaller, everybody going to the beach, Cleo going with the family, in the surf? The children going out too far, Cleo going into the water, bringing them safely out?

12. Going shopping, Sofi’s mother and the buying of the cot, in the shop, parking the car, the students arriving for the demonstrations? The film not making clear the issues? The crowds, watching from the shop windows, the shootings in the bashings, the police, violence in the store, Ferman and his being part of the group, getting out of the store, the woman with her dead friend in the street?

13. Cleo, the water breaking, getting her into the car, the jammed cars in the tunnel, two hours to get to the hospital? The helpful treatment from everyone in the hospital? The birth, the dead child, Cleo holding it, the staff wrapping the child? Cleo later saying she wanted the child to be born dead?

14. Sofi and facing the reality of her husband leaving her, getting the children to write letters, imploring him to come home? Facing the truth, telling the children the truth, their grief, sadness, eating the ice creams? Going home, the husband collecting his books and the bookshelves, the new rooms and adapting to the future?

15. The personalities of the children, ages, interactions, the two supportive ones, the older brother dominating, the little boy and his devotion to Cleo?

16. Ordinary lives, difficulties, hardships, surviving, being creative?

17. The tribute to Cleo – and the film dedicating dedicated to Libo, the real-life equivalent of Cleo in the director’s life?