Roma (Alfonso Cuarón, 2018)

Roma is fine. At first I was rather irritated by Cuarón's insistence on cramming the film with so much incident -- brass bands and wildfires and unplanned pregnancies and civil unrest -- until I realized that this isn't really intended to be a particularly realistic film. It's more of a memory fantasia, a coalescence of multiple times and spaces that the auteur recalls from his childhood, particularly those moments that featured a central role for his beloved caretaker. Time is elastic in Roma, despite the fact that it is presented in a relatively linear fashion.

In this regard, the extreme deep focus (which Cuarón accomplished with the Arri ALEXA 65, and a fair amount of post-production)* is not a signal of Bazinian realism, which is good, because it does not look realistic. It is overbearing, partly because there is so much focus, but also because there is just so much stuffed into nearly every frame. (In this regard, scenes like the ones at the beach, or the partially emptied-out apartment, are meant to register as respites for the eye.) The hyper-focus is a kind of special effect, another formal indicator that this is a set of vivid memories, not a fully faithful recreation of an objective "truth." Those CGI airplanes are also a bit of a clue. Oh, how I wanted to swat them out of the "sky" like mosquitoes.

At the same time, there is a kind of airless perfection that Cuarón achieves that is a bit suffocating. It's not just that virtually every frame is a meticulously arranged still life that, if taken in isolation, is replete with meaning. That is a symptom of Roma's anxiety, however, the sense that it must continually trumpet its own importance. But there is also a kind of thematic appositeness that fits like a glove with its formal excesses. Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) is at the center of a never-ending cycle of movement and low-key calamity, and her equanimity, which at times borders on affectlessness, serves to contrast with the boisterousness and histrionics of those around her. 

Whether this difference in attitude is a result of Aparicio being a non-professional actor, or operating at a distance from the proceedings, culturally and linguistically, as a mestiza, the spectator is able to impute to Cleo the feelings that she only sometimes has the freedom to express -- when she goes into labor, when she loses her baby, and at the end, after she saves the two children from drowning. Most of the time, Cleo is the eye of the hurricane, the point of focus in a film that is constantly overwhelming us with information.

So there's no disputing Cuarón's mastery in the construction of Roma. But a film that has so absolutely determined the position of its spectator is a bit dictatorial, which is strange, since (per the Bazinian dictum) all that focus is supposed to afford us the freedom to find our way through the film on our own. This only confirms that Roma is not a realist film, which in itself is no vice. I do think, however, it adopts a form that is easily mistaken for realism, not just because of its overall look, but because the place it carves out for the viewer -- that of Cleo -- is a rather comfortable, even self-congratulatory one for liberal viewers. We want to identify with the Other, the marginal, the "servant," the mestiza -- not with the bourgeoisie, who are so broadly lampooned in this film. 

I don't want to be mistaken as "reviewing the audience," or "backlashing." I actually think it's kind of amazing that a film like Roma, with its meandering plot and recessive lead performance, is gaining such plaudits. Like I said, Roma is fine. But it's strictly by invitation only. Cuarón is asking us to step into his memories, and there is very little room for us to gallivant around the film-text. It's a kind of nostalgia trip, a "Remember When" museum exhibit with leftist bona fides.

*Thanks to Kyle Turner for pointing out my error.