‘ROMA’ Review: A Poetic Memoir
Roma makes you human. It makes you feel and empthazise. You become naked and honest. You become a child. Roma is the example of ‘pure’ cinema which uses every cinematic technique to the maximum. Alfonso Cuaron used his personal story to reflect on his childhood, but also raised very important issues of a woman in a society and family.
I would like to divide the analysis on three main parts: story and characters, directing and cinematography, and the sound. Analyzing all of these layers, Roma really highlights what cinematic techniques can do to create an unforgettable visual experience.
Story and Symbolism
The story as we look at it, is quite simple, however the layers it presents within makes it deep and poetic. Everything Cuaron does with his story is done beautifully. He understands the power of a single image that creates a feeling, as well as the meaning it needs to carry at the same time. The story revolves around Cleo, a maid in a middle class family who lives in the neighborhood of Roma, in Mexico City. She sees both the devastation of the family that goes through a divorce, and at the same time experiences a loss herself. She has a miscarriage from a person she barely knew, who also refuses to talk and communicate in any way. All things surrounding those circumstances are the constant reflections of the characters, but particularly Cleo’s. One of the most reoccurring symbols of the movie is water. The whole movie starts with the long shot of water slowly going down the drain, which represents the continuity and that all things come and go. It also immediately establishes the position of Cleo in this story. She is a maid. Water then appears to play one of the most important moments in the story. It is the moment of confession and learning to let go.
The scene at the ocean contains many layers. It is the moment when Cleo bravely goes into the crashing waves just to save children. It is not only a great character moment which shows Cleo as a strong woman, caring “mother” who would do anything for the children, which is devastating to see, because she would also do it for her kid as well. Ocean, also is a very powerful symbol of both life and death. Yes, the water looks calm and safe, it can symbolize the peace and self-contained feeling; however, it also screams “death” because of the power of the ocean which can turn into an enemy, a monster who will not stop in front of anything. The ocean becomes the physical manifestation of power that can kill innocent children just within a second, just like the case with Cleo’s miscarriage. But as soon as Cleo gets out safe, she confesses that she never wanted the child at the first place.
The presence of the plane is also another recurring motifs of the story. Funnily enough, after we see the plane flying in the sky, the little kid, Pepe, tells Cleo about his dream and that he was a pilot, we then see the film called La Grande Vadrouille which is about the pilots fighting with the Germans. The martial-arts scene in the field has planes flying up in the sky while the men train. The juxtaposition of the fire and water; how the water saves the forest but also the people who live there; that all people unite and the only power against this devastation is water, has so many layers that connects with both curing and destructive power of water.
For the story, the fire scene also reflects that something will definitely go wrong, as well as the scene with the small earthquake at the hospital. The little symbol that is used very interestingly but which is also not a very straightforward way to show the history of the family life, is the car. The first time we see the car parking in the garage, it is done very carefully. The faceless man, the father of the family in the car knows what he is doing, he is cautions, he is self-confident and relaxed. He smokes a cigarette and listens to classical music. He parks inside perfectly. The other time the same car is parked is done by Sofia, the mother of the family. She hits the walls, and gets out of the car completely drunk. The whole scene contrasts the way her husband is like a person. Instead, Sofia is confused, betrayed and knows that she is been cheated on. But how it is done cinematically, is just speechless. The third time she buys a new smaller car which shows that they are much poorer now, and cannot really afford big things, but also it is the start of a new life with new adventures and struggles. All of these moments work together to bring the story to another level, to a clearer understanding of the situations the characters appear in, which makes our brains look deeper at every aspect of the story.
Directing and Cinematography
Alfonso Cuaron has a very distinctive style and the sense of direction in the story. To keep the continuity, he likes to make one-shot sequences and in most cases they serve the story. Just like in his previous films Gravity, Children of Mean, Y tu Mama Tambien and even in Harry Potter, he established himself as a director who can do the sequence long shots masterfully. Roma is not an exception. The settle pan of the camera follows Cleo everywhere, revealing her every-day routine as well as creates the juxtaposition between the foreground and background.
Especially in Roma, Cuaron paid attention and concentrated himself on mise-en-scene. In many shots the juxtaposition becomes ironic. For example, the scene at the movie theater when Cleo tells she is pregnant, but there is a French comedy is playing. As well as the scene when the whole family eats ice creams outside after the mother tells kids that she and her after are getting the divorce. And what do we see at the background? That’s right, the happy marriage. However, this contrast also is used against the audience to see the saddest parts of Cleo’s struggle. As Cleo delivers a dead baby, we see how on the background the doctors fight for the life of the baby, as Cleo looks painfully at them realizing the worst had just happened. There are so many scenes that work together only because of this creative usage of both foreground and background.
Sound
Sound plays one of the most important roles in modern film, however many filmmakers nowadays, it seems, rarely use the diegetic sound to communicate what goes with the characters in the scene. Alfonso Cuaron takes this challenge and amazingly utilizes all of the possible things that can be done with the diegetic sounds. As the film starts, we hear the water, the symbol repeating itself all the way in the film and appearing in all kinds and forms. The perfect scene for me that is done just masterfully, is when the father leaves the family, and there is a parade walking down the street.
As Sofia, the mother of the family stands there in sorrow, understanding deep inside that he leaves again and might have been cheating on her, but instead of showing her emotions to the audience, the manifestation of her thoughts is coming through the orchestral music that that the parade plays, as though she is lost in her own feelings and thoughts. And as Cleo tells Fermin that she is pregnant also ironically illustrates how unimportant and funny for him these news are, and as she is walking out of the cinema and looks around looking for him, there is only chaos around, all the noises from the street merchants and children running and screaming illustrates that she is alone in this world again full of disarray and confusion. Cuaron uses the environment to the maximum to create this feeling. It is indeed magnificent how the sound mixing worked when I watched in a movie theater. It is a full immersion of sounds coming from left and right.
Watching it on Netflix, of course dulls out this feeling. The usage of the silence is also used very smartly. For example, when the whole family goes to the beach, all the kids are screaming happy in the car, and the radio is playing. After Cleo saves kids from the powerful ocean waves, the whole driving scene of going home becomes a reflection of entire life. Everyone, even the kids are staring out of the car to understand what it means to be alive.
