Directed by:
Alfonso CuarónScreenplay:
Alfonso CuarónCinematography:
Alfonso CuarónCast:
Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Diego Cortina Autrey, Carlos Peralta, Marco Graf, Daniela Demesa, Nancy García García, Verónica García, Andy Cortés (more)VOD (1)
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With his eighth and most personal film, Alfonso Cuarón recreated the early-1970s Mexico City of his childhood, narrating a tumultuous period in the life of a middle-class family through the experiences of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, in a revelatory screen debut), the indigenous domestic worker who keeps the household running. Charged with the care of four small children abandoned by their father, Cleo tends to the family even as her own life is shaken by personal and political upheavals. Written, directed, shot, and coedited by Cuarón, Roma is a labor of love with few parallels in the history of cinema, deploying monumental black-and-white cinematography, an immersive soundtrack, and a mixture of professional and nonprofessional performances to shape its author’s memories into a world of enveloping texture, and to pay tribute to the woman who nurtured him. (Criterion)
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Reviews (13)
Roma isn’t love at first sight, it’s not a film that would hook me in the first minutes keep me hooked all the way till the end. But, after two or three days, it did grow on me. Cuarón this time delivers a detached view into a couple of months of the life of a broken Mexican family, mainly that of their maid, Cleo. The story takes place in a sort of by the way manner, with the camera following relative “non-stories”. But each of those fragments compose a surprisingly rich mosaic of human destinies and by the end the viewer must acknowledge that a lot has actually happened. The similarities with Czech films that in the microcosm of one family tell wider stories with a universal reach are not entirely out of place. Watching it in the cinema is certainly worth it, the camera work and, in particular, the sound are top-notch. One of the films of the year. #svetozorcinema
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The surreal power of this film, I think, stems from three things. The first is actually a very ordinary story of a completely awkward main protagonist, which is almost documentary-authentic, personal and 100% impressive thanks to the ordinariness and the awkwardness. The second thing is, without exaggeration, the masterful direction of Alfonso Cuarón. That really needs to be seen. You could create the perfect art photograph from perhaps every shot, it's all thought out to the smallest detail and the black and white camera with the hearty help of sound (something we can't see at all, just we hear it) makes it a feast for the eyes (for example the monumental forest fire scene). The third thing is how the story and presentation “work together" - everything is natural, long camera rides or still shots do not distract from what's happening right now, the scenes beautifully complement each other, form a single whole, etc. I was originally expecting something from Roma in the style of Tornatore’s Malena. It's a completely different film though, completely great in a different way. And the scenes in the maternity ward or on the beach... You simply do not forget them.
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Netflix once again proves that it doesn’t limit itself to commercially successful titles, but is also happy to fulfil the dreams of directors who deserve it. There is no doubt that Alfonso Cuarón is one of the greatest directors of the decade. As many people have mentioned already, Roma is his most personal project, which means that those 135 minutes pass by very slowly and quietly, and I found some moments slightly boring… but because everything is shot in such a brilliant way, referring to the best filmmakers of the last century, this film shouldn’t be ignored.
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A singular expression of emotion primarily through the camera, instead of dialogue and music. A unique directorial achievement in uncompromising black and white, non-mainstream, with overlong camera shots and some brilliantly staged sequences (the birth). An ode to art filmmaking and a myriad of technical finesse, but, save a few exceptions, you won't hear a single full-blooded heartbeat.
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A film with the very distinctive signature of its creator, Roma tells a story about the fragile aspects of life more through its visual art than through the faces and dialogue of its characters. Though it does work with dialogue and facial expressions (and Yalitza Aparicio is great), it does not offer the audience a universally appealing, traditionally emotional message (the film doesn’t even have any “viewer-manipulating” original music). After using his extraordinary filmmaking talent for the commercial blockbuster Gravity, Cuarón wanted to enjoy some pure filmmaking pleasure, without any obligations to studio investments. Roma is a brilliant piece of art in which I admired every shot (three or four scenes were quite disturbing to me) and perceived and acknowledged all of the social references (class-based society, the extraordinary strength of a woman with a difficult fate), but it did not engage me emotionally as much as Gravity or Children of Men.
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