The often invisible is esteemed in Alfonso Cuarón’s ‘Roma’ (2018). A masterful monochromatic reflection based on the writer-director’s recollection of his upper middle class family’s live-in domestic worker in 1970s Mexico.
Dedicated to Liboria ‘Libo’ Rodriguez, a Mixotec woman who was at once nanny, housekeeper and second mother to Cuarón and his siblings growing up, ‘Roma’ brings a traditionally background character to the fore, juxtaposing the director’s biological mother’s unravelling with a similarly devastating period in his caretaker’s life.
Though the character is based on a real person, in ‘Roma’, Libo is reimagined as Cleo, played affectingly by first time actor Yalitza Aparicio Martinez.
Set against the backdrop of land disputes, protests and the Corpus Christi massacre, Cuarón shoots wide, exposing delicate yet detailed frames situating the lead characters’ personal stories amidst a much larger historical moment.
Sprawling yet achingly intimate, ‘Roma’ focuses on Cleo, an Oaxacan woman of few words, who straddles the line between family and hired help.
Adored by the children and generally treated well by her employers, Cuarón highlights the class divide through a series of sobering scenes in which Cleo is reminded of her place via a casual errand, the need to turn off her own quarter’s lights at a designated hour and a furious request to clean the dog faeces littering the driveway.
Speaking to Vanity Fair about the film, Cuarón describes the award-winning picture as autobiographical.
“90% of the scenes come out of my memory. We shot in the places where these scenes took place,” he says, underscoring his efforts towards authenticity. “I gathered 70% of the furniture in my home… from different family members spread all around Mexico. And then I cast actors that look as much as possible as the original people.”
While the film is primarily his own recollection, Cuarón took pains to engage in extensive conversations with the real-life Cleo. “…Writing her character, I was forced to approach her for the first time in my life, to see her as a woman, and a woman with the complexities of her situation,” Cuarón relayed to Vanity Fair. “…This is the woman who raised me, it’s my – it’s weird to say surrogate mother because it’s a strange word. Put it this way, that’s the case of so many domestic workers or nannies. They have more presence in your life than sometimes the biological mom.”
An intriguing exploration of a time peppered with familial drama, a near drowning and unspeakable loss as well as an ode to Libo and the many women like her, ‘Roma’ is Cuarón getting as personal as he ever has while taking the reins on the film’s superb cinematography.
‘Roma’ (2018) won awards for best director and best foreign language film at this year’s Golden Globes and is now streaming on Netflix.
