After his Hollywood breakthrough with “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” and “Children Of Men” and the space masterpiece “Gravity”, which won seven Oscars, Alfonso Cuarón was able to devote himself to a heart project in his native Mexico thanks to the money from Netflix : “Rome“, in which the director incorporates autobiographical elements into an incredibly well-staged film highlight full of visually strong ideas, deeply felt humanity and pure poetry.
Before “Roma” there was three Oscars for Best International Film, Best Director and Best Cinematography, the last two for Alfonso Cuarón personally. The film earned all three awards – and if the author of this article had his way, he would have deserved more Academy Awards.
Because “Roma” is an absolutely exceptional film in many ways. Not only because Cuarón once again pulls out all the stops of his great production skills. Not only because such stories, which are off the beaten track in Hollywood, still receive far too little attention they deserve. But also, because in “Roma” Cuarón combines the big and the small, the high and the low, the mundane and the groundbreaking in an inimitable way.
“Roma” is “arthouse and overwhelming cinema at the same time”, as the editors of FILMSTARTS put it, an “intimate blockbuster, a titanic gem”. It got an excellent 4.5 out of 5 stars. Because even though Cuarón actually tells a story here in beautiful black-and-white images, he does so with means that you would rather expect in expensive blockbuster cinema, namely with highly complex choreographed and elaborate tracking shots, countless figures and a multitude of events.
There are always different levels, different stories to discover in the many extremely long shots teeming with energy and detail: For example, when the main character Cleo goes to the cinema with her boyfriend, Cuarón not only shows both of them, but also a couple who are friends and the Louis de Funès comedy “The Big Party” currently in theaters. Which part of this scene to focus on is up to the audience – but at least it helps to make “Roma” feel a slice of real life.
For all its technical virtuosity and visually overwhelming, “Roma” never turns into a detached finger exercise, because Cuarón is too gifted a storyteller and his wonderful Oscar-nominated lead actress Yalitza Aparicio grounds the film in every scene. So “Roma” is always exciting, sometimes humorous, downright shocking at times and always an event.
The plot of “Roma”
Mexico City in the early 1970s: the nanny Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) takes care of the four children of a wealthy family. But the days of peaceful coexistence are soon over: the family man leaves his mother Sofía (Marina de Tavira), who finds it difficult to cope with this situation. And as Cleo’s private life is thrown into turmoil, violence between protesters and paramilitaries in the city threatens to escalate…