This article first appeared in "Uncle Four Flavor Poison".
Alfonso Cuaron made "Roma" with a pure purpose, dedicated to Libo. Libo is a servant of the Cuaron family, raising Cuaron up. So it can be seen from this that "Rome" is a private book. About childhood, and the people closest to you.
Home letters are secretive, trivial, and peaceful, as do "Roma" or other such films, such as Zhang Dalei's "August." They are all from memory, and then transformed through life experience and experience, standing here, through a look back to that era by Libo or his father.
As Cuarón himself said, "Ninety percent of the scenes in the film come from my memory, some direct, some roundabout, but it's all about the era that shaped me, or the era that shaped Mexico, and that's exactly what. The beginning of a long period of change in Mexico."
Not only Caron and Zhang Dalei, every director is eager to make or has made such a film, or about childhood, or about youth, or about the closest people. In essence, this is a subject that is prone to overflowing emotions, and not every director puts those hidden private memories on the big screen, so that people can stick to it for two hours and still resonate with it.
Therefore, if you want to make your memories valuable when they are made public, you must go through a process of abandoning and condensing your memories, and even alienate them from the characters, otherwise you will become self-pity and self-indulgence.
This way of recalling is most common in Hou Hsiao-hsien's films, and "Roma" is also the result of constant abandonment and alienation. and history. This time, "Roma" was performed by Cuaron himself. It can be seen from the lens that facing Libo, most of the time, it presents an objective attitude of withdrawing and not intervening, but at the same time, there are also reluctant followers. .
The following of the camera means the injection of emotion and attitude. This kind of sympathy extended from the camera undoubtedly prevents the film from being completely alienated. But fortunately, this following is very rare. "Roma" is tough enough most of the time.
In this middle-class family modeled after the Cuarons, Libo received almost no rude treatment. The hostess is enthusiastic, the children are warm, and even the hostess who has never appeared a few times has given her enough respect and courtesy. But the class division between people, and Libo's carefulness, often flow inadvertently.
Twice in the bland family life that preceded me, I felt an emotional surge. The first time was when the family was watching a comedy, Libo finished the housework, snuggled in the corner next to his younger son, and watched TV with the employer's family. There is a sense of happiness in her eyes that is amused by comedy, and a sense of guilt that enjoys life. At this time the hostess inadvertently asked her to make a cup of coffee, she rose gently and went downstairs. What struck me was the guilty look in his eyes.
Another time at night, Libo and another maid finished their day's work, exercising and joking in the cramped room. At this time, she subconsciously hurried to turn off the light, because the hostess watched for a while. Said they were using electricity. In both scenes, the director created a cheerful atmosphere, but revealed inadvertent cruelty.
For most of the time, Lipo was gentle and forbearing. Neither the employer's family nor the audience outside the screen could really perceive her emotions. She was like an animal, just like humans seldom accurately perceive her emotions. The joy and anger of animals, among the animals that humans can often see, they each have different missions, either to provide labor, or their own meat, or to provide companionship and cuteness. There are many close-ups of dogs and poultry in the movie, and their relationship with people is similar to that of the servant Libo. Especially on Christmas Eve, the owners of the house use wine as a song, and the servants and poultry are part of the happy atmosphere.
Of course, class contradictions are not the subject of "Rome". What Libo's fate reflects is obviously much heavier than it is.
"Roma" isn't just a tragedy about Libo's miserable life, nor is Libo's life a horrific one. There may be people who are keen to attribute Libo's suffering, such as race (Libo is descended from American Indians), Fermin (he had a relationship with Libo and later learned that Libo was pregnant) leave and threaten Libo), it comes down to the times (Libo suffered the world-shaking Corpus Christi massacre, more than 100 students were brutally killed by the Mexican military during the parade, and Libo, after being overly frightened, died gave birth to a dead baby).
But is the director just criticizing these races, scumbags, governments and turbulent times? They may be worthy of criticism, but such common-sense criticism is definitely not the final appeal of "Roma", and Cuaron is not trying to find out these specious culprits.
What affects people's experiences are all things that are impermanent and chaotic. "Roma" does not try to attribute Libo's difficult life, it shows the ordinary suffering of an ordinary person, and then from these sufferings, the majestic power is condensed.
There are two most moving scenes in the movie, the first is fire and the second is water.
On Christmas Eve, Libo went to the countryside with his employer's family for Christmas. The house was crowded and lively, and the masters were celebrating the New Year. Libo stood alone in the corridor and looked at the distant mountains. Suddenly, a fire flickered in front of her eyes, and a sudden forest fire ignited, lighting up the night sky. Libo was the first to see the fire, and the cheerful atmosphere in the house quickly turned to panic.
This fire has no narrative significance in the entire story, and does not advance the story at all. But it came so inexplicably. What is this fire?
As a metaphor of the times, it is like the sudden and tragic massacre in Corpus Christi, and it is also the turning point of social change in Mexico. In the following decades, Mexico was turbulent. The forging of personal power is negligible under the mighty power of the times.
But for Libo, I hope it is a splendid fireworks specially set off for Libo. The orderly life of the masters in the past was disrupted, and this short-term loss of order gave Libos souls a moment of relief. rest. In front of nature, everyone returns to insignificance.
Taking a step back, even if the fire has no representative significance, the billowing smoke can still make people feel majestic and poetic. This is an expression in which the atmosphere (the emotional part) takes over after the narrative (rational part) stops.
The second field is water. In the penultimate scene of the movie, it turned out that the family was playing in the water at the beach, and the hostess left halfway. Under repeated instructions, the two children went to swim in the sea. Libo watched the two children gradually disappear without a trace. She who could not swim followed her into the sea. Libo walked farther and farther, and the waves gradually drowned her. She continued to walk, found the first child, and continued onward. Go, struggle to find the second one. The sea continued to beat the three of them wave after wave, and she moved back step by step, and finally reached the coast. When the hostess heard the news, the four of them hugged tightly, and the hostess thanked her in tears.
At this moment, Libo really burst into tears. She burst into tears, and said two words without the text, "I didn't want her in the first place, I didn't want to give birth to her in the first place." "She" is the dead baby that Libo gave birth to.
Maybe everyone has forgotten that she gave birth to a dead baby, but Libo sentenced herself to death for this. In fact, in giving birth to the dead baby, Libo never did anything wrong. The child was abandoned by Fermin, and the miscarriage was caused by the massacre, but Libo was burdened with an unimaginable sense of guilt. She paranoidly believed that her thought of not wanting to give birth to a child had some inevitable connection with the death of the child. She thought that this sinful thought was a curse on the child. After the child died, she followed this The curse was transferred to himself.
Those turbulent waves are a portrait of life, and Libo's life is a long-term drowning, and she has rationalized the feeling of suffocation as a part of being alive. So when she walked to the shore step by step, she finally found out that she could also surface. She saved the lives of two children, which freed her from the guilt of the dead baby, and in this moment she was finally redeemed.
So she burst into tears and said what she had buried in the deepest part of her heart and thought it was the most unforgivable thing, "I didn't want to give birth to her in the first place." Crying is a kind of forgiveness for oneself, and the same is true for saying this. At this moment, she finally released herself from the cross. Libo is in Nirvana.
In the last scene of the movie, the family returns to normal after a marriage accident. Like Libo, the hostess was reborn from the ashes. The last picture is of the camera panning to the sky, the plane going up and down, and there are sparse human voices and dog barking in the ambient sound.
Since "Roma" is about childhood, this is probably the closest thing to childhood. The sky, the plane, the voice, the barking of dogs, everything looks the same, and everything changes.
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