{"id":22488,"date":"2019-01-20T22:02:26","date_gmt":"2019-01-20T12:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22488"},"modified":"2019-02-01T22:08:42","modified_gmt":"2019-02-01T12:08:42","slug":"roma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=22488","title":{"rendered":"Roma"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"romaposter\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Director:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Alfonso Cuaron
\nWriter:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Alfonso Cuaron
\nCast:\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira<\/p>\nF<\/span>or over twenty years, Alfonso Cuaron has been writing and directing some of my favourite films, from small scale Coming of Age productions such as Y Tu Mama Tambien<\/em> to big budget Hollywood hits Gravity<\/em> and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban<\/em>.\u00a0 He has an unerringly consistency to his films, with a strong eye for characterization and storytelling.\u00a0 Its easy to forget that the first two Chris Columbus Harry Potter<\/em> films were rather soulless Hollywood movie adaptations and that it wasn\u2019t until Cuaron\u2019s Prisoner of Azkaban<\/em> that the films achieved a greater depth of character and a more visually distinctive look and feel.<\/p>\n

With Roma<\/em>, Cuaron has returned to his roots, telling a tale set in early 1970s Mexico, inspired in part by his own upbringing.\u00a0 Roma<\/em> follows the lives of an upper middle class Mexican family, through the lens of their housekeeper Cleodegaria \u201cCleo\u201d Gutierrez.\u00a0 The household is run by matriarch Sophia who lives with her four young children, mother-in-law Teresa and her husband Antonio who goes away for weeks at a time on business trips.\u00a0 Doing the housework is Cleo and another maid Adela.<\/p>\n

Roma<\/em> is a methodically paced family drama centered around two ongoing developments \u2013 the gradual collapse of Sophia\u2019s marriage to her increasingly distant husband and Cleo\u2019s unplanned pregnancy to a young man Fermin who runs out of town when he learns the news.<\/p>\n

I felt immediately connected with Roma<\/em>.\u00a0 It is a visually sumptuous film that invites the viewer to pour over every inch of the screen, absorbing the little details of the household.\u00a0 Cuaron rewards you for taking that look.\u00a0 The film is a masterclass in Show, Don\u2019t Tell and we learn a lot about the family dynamics \u2013how the mother-in-law fits in, the relationship between the maids and the kids, who interacts with the family dog \u2013 through little glimpses of them going about their lives in the background of the film.<\/p>\n

\"romamovie\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been to Mexico before and I wasn\u2019t born in the era that the film is set in but I found myself relating a lot to Roma<\/em>.\u00a0 The sweaty and humid atmosphere, the co-habitation of upper middle class families and house keepers, the hustle and bustle of the streets \u2013 I found many direct comparisons to my own upbringing in South East Asia in the Eighties and Nineties.<\/p>\n

Roma<\/em> is a film of real quality.\u00a0 Cuaron invites the viewer to make observations about the challenges that Cleo and Sophia face that can be political, historical and societal without force-feeding any particular viewpoint.\u00a0 It\u2019s to the film\u2019s credit that the characters are well rounded and don\u2019t conform to being simple caricatures.\u00a0 A lesser film could have made Cleo a faultless saint or had Sophia treat the maids with cruelty to try and drive home a certain viewpoint but Roma<\/em> is much more than that.\u00a0 Cleo and Sophia co-exist in the same physical space but the problems they face are worlds apart.\u00a0 And despite their differences, there are moments where they come together to support one another in times of dire need.<\/p>\n

Much has been written about the distribution model for Roma<\/em>, which had an extremely limited theatrical run and instead has gone through Netflix as its primary means of reaching audiences.\u00a0 I understand the concerns of purist cinephiles \u2013 the film is so gorgeous to look at that it seems a crime that 98% of its audience won\u2019t see it on a big screen.\u00a0 On the other hand, I\u2019ve written previously about how award season films in Australia are held back from release for months by distributors until the Academy Awards have aired and can be frustratingly difficult to catch.\u00a0 By comparison, leading with Netflix means that Roma<\/em> will likely be seen by potentially hundreds of thousands more viewers.\u00a0 Time will tell what the long term effects could for award season films choosing Netflix first but at first glance, I\u2019m not entirely against the move.\u00a0 More eyes on arthouse films can only be a good thing surely?<\/p>\n

Whether you see it in a cinema or on Netflix, Roma<\/em> is an easy recommendation.\u00a0 It is a fine film anchored by some terrific performances from Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira who picked up well deserved Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress nominations for their respective roles.\u00a0 Cuaron continues to make one great film after the next.\u00a0 He may well be the most consistent director working in the industry today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A year in the life of a middle-class family’s maid in Mexico City in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22490,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1064,2829],"class_list":["post-22488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-films","tag-alfonso-cuaron","tag-roma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22488"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22492,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22488\/revisions\/22492"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}