There will be spoilers, especially toward the end of this review.
I usually like arthouse films and foreign language films. Roma is Netflix’s Oscar nominated film that fits both categories. Director Alfonso Cuarón first came into existence for me in 2001 when I saw his film Y tu mamá también. He also directed Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) and Gravity (2013).
I have read online many people are raving about Roma, but I do not get the big deal over it. I do not understand why it was nominated for the Oscar. There have been so many films about a young woman having premarital sex, getting pregnant and the guy disappearing. I always think you reap what you sow, so I do not feel bad for you. The young woman is Cleo is a maid for a middle class Mexican family. At times she is the hero and other times the lowly maid. I found her story rather boring and sadly predictable.
On the opposite end of the spectrum are those who do not want this film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture because it validates Netflix and could move films away from the multiplexes. Personally, I hope not because I prefer the big screen and the buttery popcorn.
My biggest problem with Roma, besides the actual screenplay, was the way Cuarón shot it in black and white. It is 1970s not 1870s. I hate this retro look in films to make it look more artsy. I think if it were in colour it would not have looked as good. It makes me wonder what he was hiding by making it in black and white. The other problem I had with the film was the camera movements. Almost all the scenes had the camera panning the room or scenery from left to right or right to left. It would sometimes move slowly and other times quickly to follow the action. I literally got dizzy. Sometimes the scenes were long for no obvious reason.
Many disasters happened in the film that should have evoked an emotion from any viewer, but sometimes it did not translate from the screen to the heart. There was an earthquake, fire, riots, murder, pregnancy, dead of baby, divorce, and an almost drowning of two children. On the beach, after Cleo who cannot swim saves the two children from drowning she confesses that she did not want her baby to be born. Her wish came true. It should have been a sad scene, but I felt nothing. It should have been an intimate moment, but it felt drowned out with the sound of the waves.
The other thing about this film that seems to resonate with some people is the lack of men. All the men in the film are absent. The mother Sra. Sofía (Marina de Tavira) in the film even states it to Cleo after her husband leaves her, “We are alone. No matter what they tell you, we women are always alone.” The film has a feminist twist to it. The filmmaker is telling us that women are always alone. We have turned into a man hating world. This is not a trend; it is the new way. Men are the problem.
This film could have been in Anytown, USA and nobody would have cared, but since it was in Mexico all the critics are raving about it. I found Roma to be unsatisfactory. Most of the time when I see a film I want to be entertained and forget the problems of the day. Roma only added to the problems. 5/10.
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