Children of Women
(originally posted on IMDb 15 December 2018)

This one creeps up on you, but it's worth the effort to stay with it for the climactic emotional wallops. Granted, for much of its languorous two-and-a-quarter hours, "Roma" appears to be another in a long line of staid domestic dramas--the sort of foreign-language pictures that seem to frequently garner some critical praise around awards season, and this one appears all the more artsy with its desaturated black-and-white look. There's the focus on the lower end of class stratification, with the protagonist Cleo, an indigenous Mexican, as a live-in maid to an educated middle-class family of presumably some European ancestry. While the family of her employers struggles from the abandonment of their father, so does Cleo face her own problems being disavowed by the man who impregnated her. Meanwhile, the narrative occasionally cues us into the political turmoil of its setting in early-1970s Mexico, with the poverty, land seizures and redistribution, and the massacre of student protesters. While much of this is of some interest, especially for offering a semi-autobiographical account of the childhood of one of today's premiere filmmakers, Alfonso Cuarón ("Children of Men" (2006) and "Gravity" (2013), among others), the heart of "Roma" is the dramatic arc of Cleo.

Characteristic of Cuarón's oeuvre, "Roma" is visually splendid, if often times contemplative, as well. The affect of the story seems to necessitate the tendency for long steady takes, but there are some impressive and even ironic compositions, which are heightened by the tendency of framing in long shots. One of my favorites is the shot of the women and children exhausted while on a supposed vacation, abandoned by their men, as a wedding is celebrated in the background, even though a sequence such as the one in the shop during the street demonstrations may be more technically intriguing. There's also all of the business with the cars and the gated garage filled with dog poop. The significance of the repeated views of airplanes, however, somewhat eludes me for the time being (although I suppose it's a visual representation having something to do with the intimate narrative focus within a broader societal context). The water motif is more obvious, and the parallel tracking shots stand out.

As far as an insight into the presentation of the filmmaker, as offered by himself, the self-reflexive scenes of movies-within-the-movie may be the most illuminating. Surely, most will be reminded by "Marooned" (1969) of Cuarón's own space picture, which earned him an Oscar, "Gravity." While that one went so outward that it left the planet, "Roma" may be of comparable innovation despite focusing inward.