To make a long-winded review short: Alfonso Cuarón’s “Roma” is a immaculate, wondrous filmmaking. Cuarón’s “Roma” debuted in theaters this week, sharing screens with 25th anniversary showings of Steven Spielberg’s “Schindler’s List,” and make note of possible synchronicity there, for both are among the most perfectly crafted modern film ever accomplished. After “Children of Men’ and “Gravity,” how could Cuarón possible pull more even cinematic innovation from his pocket? He does it by turning back the clock on his own work, swapping the Steadicam flow of “Children of Men” for quietly, meticulously composed panoramas of a upper class Mexican neighborhood in 1969 capture in the sublime beauty of black and white film.
The cinema is changing and I certainly hope those aspirational young directors at NYU and USC are watching. Cuarón and Iñárritu are rebelling the Hollywood school of living action figures, storyboarded like comics, artificially CGI’d into existence, as if spat from a 3D printer.
mise en scène
/ˌmēz ˌän ˈsen/
noun
- the arrangement of scenery and stage properties in a play.
- the setting or surroundings of an event or action.
Cuarón and Iñárritu rebellion is to wrest films from their surroundings with a slavish devotion to the fabric of reality. It’s neo-realism’s rebirth in the age of virtual reality, with fluid cameras and high definition capturing every nuance WITHIN the frame, making Cuarón and Iñárritu stand in stark contrast to the digital domain of modern Hollywood films. But in “Roma” Cuarón dials back on the steadicam flow of life, and uses a liesurely Antonio-like lens, forever moving in graceful pans that reveal the stunning tableux that Cuarón has carefully orchestrated into his frames. It’s a more traditional photographic technique, and he uses these 180-degree pans with such regularity at first that it feel indulgent, but as the film unfolds, the magic of Cuarón’s mise en scene with the frame expands and grows more brilliant — at times on the scale and complexity of the most audacious Kurosawa battle moments, they are so wonderfully choreographed. Set somewhere in 1969 (although a period piece, it’s barely discernible as such), the re-creation of a student riot is stunning directed, and other complex set pieces are equally masterfully staged. If there was anyone to pick up Kubrick’s “Napoleon” script and do it justice as a master visual director, it would be Cuarón.
“Roma” is about a young girl, a Mexican servant, whose devotion to the children she cares for and how they survive the decaying shelter of a wealthy Mexican household is a study in beatitude of selflessness. Saints come in many forms, and Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) is of that gentle flock long promised better things to come, but with of little hope of seeing them in this world. From a poor village of indigenous peoples of Mexico, a flat row of corrugated house, on streets of lumber-bridged mud puddle, Cleo and her sister are the au pairs and housekeeper to a distracted doctor and his stressed-but caring-wife. Her hands ever full of dishes, with always stairs to climb with wash, Cleo’s existence is a humble but contented one for she has nothing but the purest love for her young wards. While their admired father has acquired the barred windows of Mexico’s wealthy to shelter them, it’s Cleo who kisses their heads to wake them and the one who they tell they love. Hardly more than a child herself, Cleo’s love for the children is tragically unreturned in her own life, and she weathers her own tragedy with humble grace, Cuaron also knows saints come in many forms, and his character study of Cleo is indeed just that.
There is very little story to be told, so little that to reveal even the barest turns of fate would be to ruin artfully revealed disasters, so it should suffice to say, the wheel of life both ascends and descends for the family, with Cleo’s love helping the center hold. Yalitza’s quiet performance coupled with Cuarón’s intense, yet, invisible hand transforms her performance into one of those incredibly natural bits of portraiture that will forever make “Roma” shine as one of cinema’s bridge to great art.
A wonderful, perfect film, immaculately made. Cuarón takes his place among the greats with “Roma” (and Netflix as a bonfided studio). Cuarón’s direction of “Roma” has all the beauty, insight, and authenticity of Ingmar Bergman’s best works, the icongraphic imagery of Fellini, and directorial mise-en-scene of the great masters. But there are so many brilliants moments that are Cuaron’s alone that it may be time to speak in new tones of reverence.