The story of "Roma" has different shapes and many emotions, and these are things that I have wanted to express since I wanted to be a director. - Alfonso Cuaron
Alessandro Gonzalez Inarido, Guillermo del Toro, and Alfonso Cuaron, also known as the "Mexico Three Greats," injected great energy into the new Hollywood American films, The three have won 4 Best Director and 3 Best Picture at the Oscars in the past 5 years. Their excellent director awareness and directing ability are obvious to all. Only Cuaron has yet to win the best picture, and his latest work "Roma" is likely to achieve this breakthrough, but because Cuaron chose his native language (Spanish) to complete the film, it is more likely to win the best picture. Best foreign language film.
The film "Roma" was supposed to meet the audience at the Cannes Film Festival, but due to the breakup between the Cannes Film Festival and the distributor Netflix, "Roma" had to go to the Venice Film Festival, which is more accepting of streaming media. Under the blessing of the chairman of the township and friend Toro, Cuaron's "Roma" won the Venice Golden Lion Award in one fell swoop, which was highly praised.
The name Roma is not Rome in Italy but a neighborhood in Mexico City. Cuaron said the film is dedicated to her wet nurse Libo, who in the turbulent 1970s Mexico treated her employer's children as her own, endured everything with tenacity, and embraced everything with tenderness. A letter from home to the little people in the big history is the best summary of the content of the film.
Therefore, this film is very personal, and Cuaron said that this film is reshaping his own memory, reshaping his memory of Rome. But Cuaron made such a personal story into a film that countless audiences can empathize with: the stones of historical events smashed into the pond, causing ripples that made duckweed float up and down.
1. From splashes of soapy water to layers of waves
The opening of the film is a long-term fixed-lens aerial shot, aiming at the marble tiles washed by water waves. The surrounding birds chirping, walking, and the sound of water flow are incessant, creating a peaceful environment amid the noise. Splash after splash of soapy water hit the wall and folded back, the soap bubbles from dispersing to gathering and then bursting, we stared at the ground, and gradually we heard the roar of the engines, a plane passing in the reflection of the sky. The camera slowly lifted, and we saw a cleaner in an empty corridor.
This opening was directly cut into the concept trailer of "Roma". In the interview, Cuaron revealed that this opening actually means that the daily peaceful life is broken by sudden events, and the fate of the individual is forever given by the historical process. changed. And this is the key to understanding the film "Roma", that is, it is about "an individual embedded in history" .
Cleo, a female cleaner, is an employee of a middle-class family. She is hard-working, caring for her employer's children, and at the same time maintaining a romantic girlish feeling. But the social transformation of Mexican society in the 1970s left many families torn apart. Corio's boyfriend, Fermín, quietly disappeared after hearing news of her pregnancy, and the husband of her employer, Sofía, abandoned his wife and son for a new love. Cleo continued to work hard during her pregnancy, and Sophia didn't fire her servant despite her financial constraints.
On this day, Keleo, who was pregnant with Liujia, was accompanied to choose a crib for the child. At this time, a large-scale riot broke out on the street. The students who were demonstrating were suppressed by the military. This is 1971. The Corpus Christi incident that shocked the world on June 10, 2008. The earth-shattering gunshots and shouts mixed together outside the window, completely stunned Krio. However, what surprised her even more was that among the soldiers who came in to search the students, one of the male soldiers who pointed a gun at her was Fermin. She didn't expect to see Fermin again in this way, and the greatly stimulated Corio's amniotic fluid ruptured and finally gave birth to a dead baby.
After giving birth, Corio often sits at home, unable to calm down her emotions. She couldn't find anyone to talk to, and no one could comfort her. She only has the mother's love that she has not yet poured into her employer's four children. On a seaside vacation trip, the two children went to play in the tumbling waves, and despite repeated instructions not to go too far, they disappeared from Corio's line of sight. The waterless Corio went to the rough sea by herself, trying her best to keep her standing position, and rescued the two children. A family of five and Corio hugged tightly on the shore, the sun shone on them, and the water droplets on their bodies reflected light.
"Rome" takes us from a very subtle point of entry—a nanny and mother—to the city that Cuaron remembers, the people and things in that city. The film focuses on Corio's personal destiny, the city and historical events of "Rome" are pushed into the background, which fully demonstrates the "private nature" of the film, which is Cuaron's gratitude to the wet nurse. A sincere expression of love. At the same time, the background is all too clear, though not many times, but Cuaron's fleeting glimpse of planes flying across the sky, troops patrolling city streets, traffic jams and that bloody conflict, a few strokes It draws a strong sense of history.
It is precisely because of this "contrast between personal destiny and historical process" that "Rome" is given such a "huge" title but only tells a slightly "small" story. The film focuses on the mood changes and choices made by Kleo as an individual. The two most important things she did: childbirth and salvation, were all because the ruts of the historical wheel changed the trajectory of her life. Individual experiences are colored with historical colors, and individual behaviors are endowed with historical motives, so this private letter can be read aloud, accepted and empathized by all audiences. From pouring a splash of soapy water to facing layers of waves, the characters' minds undergo a major transformation, and the introverted spiritual history mirrors the external "Roman history".
2. Calm and solemn gaze
In recent years, the two films "Children of Man" and "Gravity", which have established Cuaron's status in the film industry, have used a lot of long shots. The photographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who is known for his long shots, uses extremely complicated scheduling. Even in the way of dazzling skills, countless audiences are immersed in the world of the screen, especially the 3D long shots in "Gravity" bring people an extremely shocking visual experience, which is praised by many filmmakers.
The long-shot presence in these two films is very strong, and many viewers are directly aware of the camera's intent, whether it's the immersive handheld photography in "Children of Men" or the smooth and smooth digital photography in "Gravity", It can make people feel Cuaron's grasp of the "space-time coexistence" of long shots. The large movement of the long shot, the long shooting time (the 13-minute long shot at the opening of "Gravity"), and the complexity of the scheduling design all let people see the imagination and directing ability of Cuaron's genius. So before "Roma" came out, after learning that the film would be shot by Cuaron himself, many people thought that the film must have longer and more complicated long shots (mainly because of the grand name of "Roma") .
In fact, however, the language of the shots in "Roma" is very restrained . The camera movement is dominated by panning and horizontal panning. The camera is fixed on a tripod with almost no hands, and there is a fixed camera position for a long time to "gazing" at a scene, such as a fire scene, a childbirth scene, etc. Close-ups are rarely used in scenes, and they are basically panoramas. Under the 65mm film format, they can give people a more immersive feeling. The panorama also gives the lens more depth, allowing people to see the interaction between the historical environment and the behavior of the characters. Compositions are also often framed diagonally to guide and expand the viewer's view. In terms of sound design, Cuaron amplifies the surrounding sound, enhances the "immersion" of watching movies, and amplifies the intensity of emotional impact.
It is also worth noting that the group dialogue scenes or characters in the film are often 1/4 side and 3/4 side , often forming a right angle or rectangle, and the fixed camera panoramic shooting does not require front and back. This dialogue scene presents a semi-open state, both inviting you to intervene because it has a gap, and rejecting your intervention because it does not give you enough details (such as a close-up of the front and back facial reactions) Wait).
This right-angle composition is also reflected in the surrounding scenery. The characters are often located in a corner, forming a concave layout, which not only makes people feel the depth, but also has restraint, and conforms to the characters' introverted psychological characteristics. This layout, combined with the use of the panning mirror, can take into account the horizontal and vertical extension, express the environment to a greater extent, and have a sense of "grand".
This very calm lens language puts the audience in a side view, which not only has a strange sense of alienation, but also allows the attention to be focused on the interior of the lens and the internal changes of the characters. intentions fit perfectly. We can't get into it very personally, but we can feel the overflowing emotions.
The most prominent is the rescue scene of the waves at the end of the film. The whole camera movement is very simple, horizontal traverse and roll, and there is almost no change in scene. Purely relying on the behavior of the characters inside the camera and the beauty of the environment, a huge wave of emotion was set off, hitting the hearts of the audience. We were locked into the camera, silently watching this whole thing happen.
There are also a lot of vivid details in the film, which is an important means for Cuaron to add in to shape the authenticity of memory and express his feelings for his homeland. For example, the candles placed at the feet, the raindrops outside the window, the children playing in the forest, the most prominent one should be the "tree demon" dressed in fancy clothes to play with the children. When the forest fires, he walked to the camera. A Mexican folk song was sung, giving people a sense of ritual chanting nature.
Cuaron pays great attention to the creation of composition in this film, and the composition of two-point, three-point, diagonal, and frame is easy to find, but this kind of shot with a strong sense of design has an excess of "craftsmanship", which dilutes those shots. original poetry . This is also the limitation of Cuaron. The "poetic" he deliberately created is still a "spectacle" similar to Hollywood blockbusters. The excessive artificial traces are a major failure of this small plot film.
3. Women carry the power of life
Women always play a very important role in Cuaron's films. In early works such as "When Love Was Hysterical", "Little Princess", and "Your Mother, Too", all women were impregnated were emotional power ; while in later works such as "Son of Man" and "Gravity" ", women are endowed with the power to symbolize life , and even the hope of all mankind.
In "Roma", this life force is still very strong, and Cuaron presents life and death in the same scene, reflecting his more dialectical view of life and death . Kleo came to the hospital for a pregnancy test. The sudden earthquake shook off a lot of rubble and fragments, and a layer of baby boxes that looked very fragile protected the little lives inside; Kleo, who came to choose the crib, witnessed a The students of the uprising were brutally killed, and she was frightened to give birth to a new life; in the race against time, she gave birth to a baby without breathing, and witnessed the whole process of rescue failure, and had to accept this cruel reality; Keli After Ao risked his life to save the child, he knelt down on the shore and whispered, it was his own child who never really came to this world. This juxtaposition of life and death brings about a strong emotional tension, and the primordial and vigorous life force becomes the driving force of emotional impact.
The head of the family that breaks up the family in "Roma"—a man who has been chaotic and abandoned—is fleeing and absent, but he has enormous internal power. One of the few close-ups in the film is when he makes his debut. He is an important pillar of the middle-class family's ability to survive without the iron shoes of history. But he left, so the pressure of life fell on the women, which was the source of the misery. The other Fermin, who turned his face and didn't recognize anyone, was a participant (or victim) in the torrent of history, and he represented the suffering inflicted on individuals by this era.
In the film, Kelio has experienced a series of major changes in her life. She has no choice but to silently resist all the injustices that life has done to her. After Sophia was abandoned by her husband, she still chose to hide it from her children. And to endure the torture and sexual harassment of loneliness. But they all chose to bear all the hardships, they never gave up on their children, and faced life with tenacity.
Like life, women seem to be very fragile, but they contain enormous power. The light they shine in the face of difficulties is what "Roma" really wants to express, and is the real reason for "Rome"'s grandeur . It's a personal letter and a female epic.
"Roma" takes us into the city in Cuaron's memory. Ke Leo is like a bluestone, falling into the interface of black and white images, first ripples, then waves, and finally, what strikes the audience is bound with fate of Hong Bo. When we are freed from the emotional waves, the sun shines brighter.
Cleo is still working as a cleaner. The plane flew over her head.
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