The film "Roma" is a back-to-basics work directed by Alfonso Cuarón, who returned to his native Mexico after completing the larger Hollywood production of "Gravity". It is based on Alfonso Cuarón's own childhood experiences, and takes the story of the maid Cleo as the main line. It not only shows the ups and downs of personal destiny and family changes, but also shows the turbulent environment in Mexico at that time. social changes brewing.
The film's two important male characters, the hero Sr. Antonio and Cleo's boyfriend (friends?) Fermín, are both irresponsible and slutty. When Sr. Antonio drove his car home and drove into his house, the film gave many close-ups, like a grand ceremony and the arrival of important people; but due to the narrow passage and the wide body, Sr. Antonio needs to constantly adjust the direction of the front of the car to avoid damage, but the result is still damaged, which means that there is an irreparable crack in his relationship with his wife. The scene of Sr. Antonio driving a car into the house, symbolizing the "dominance" of patriarchy, the male penetration, and the scene of Fermín's Japanese martial arts in front of Cleo can be seen in parallel; full frontal nudity Fermín, the shower curtain rod in his hand is like his exposed sexual organs, and this shower curtain rod provocatively points at the audience, and at the same time creates a sense of penetration that is about to break through the limitations of the camera, showing nakedly. The "power" of male power.
By the time the hostess Sra. Sofía knew that her marriage could not be saved, she also drove the car into the passage of her own house, she was slamming around without any scruples, as some film critics mentioned, This means that Sra. Sofía no longer needs to handle the relationship between the two parties as carefully as Sr. Antonio did, implying the hostess's "inner conflict and breaking the game"; "Smaller, but easier to drive in, or "suitable" for the passage of the home, also represents that Sra. Sofía is gradually getting rid of the troubles of the past, becoming independent and self-reliant, and no longer digging into the horns of emotion.
And the dog feces that often appear in Sra. Sofía’s house can’t be washed no matter how they are cleaned (at the beginning of the movie, the maid Cleo should be cleaning the dog feces on the floor), which may reflect the breakdown of Sra. Sofía’s marriage. To be repaired, difficult to be hidden. And the watchdog trapped at home has multiple references - it not only refers to maids such as Cleo, but also refers to women who want to maintain a family and go out less; there is a scene in the movie, After the watchdog was accidentally let out, the children also ran out disobediently - this can also reflect the delicate relationship between the watchdog and the children.
The film "Roma" has a few images that are deliberately intended to be instantly compared, and I am impressed. The first is shortly at the beginning of the film, when we see the neat living room and dining room of Sra. Sofía's house, the camera immediately turns to the upper floor, showing the messy corridors and rooms horizontally; the other is the place where Cleo and Fermín date. part, the weather seems to be fine, but in the next scene, through the window of their "gunhouse", it is obvious that it is raining outside; and Cleo suffered an earthquake in the infant care unit of the hospital, and witnessed the smallpox that was shaken, and the stone was crushed. Immediately after holding the baby incubator, the scene shifts to the cross on the cemetery, where the contrast between birth and death could not be more obvious, and for the first time hinted at the suppression of the student movement, or the massacres that the government was involved in.
Director Alfonso Cuarón further showed the superiority and show-off of the white middle class with the beautiful manor of the hostess' relative's house and the dog-headed taxidermy hanging on the wall. And the paragraph where they shot near the manor can be linked to the subsequent street shooting (the real event is Corpus Christi Massacre in 1971), the sudden forest fire, and heralded the imminent arrival of a revolution, and the lizard was caught after the fire. The close-up of the film , as mentioned in the above film review, is a metaphor for the suppression of students. Alfonso Cuarón has directed several films in a row, all with childbirth or related imagery, the maid Cleo's painful escape from a private shop, reminiscent of "Children of Men", her pregnancy, and the Mexican student movement. Pregnancy is like being connected to each other by an umbilical cord; so her miscarriage symbolizes the failure of the student protest march, and the stillbirth held in Cleo's hands, and the image of a female student on the street supporting a fallen male student , which echoes.
But in the dialogue in the latter part of the film, we know that Cleo actually did not want the child she was carrying, so Alfonso Cuarón's true attitude towards the student movement at that time is the focus of the discussion below.
We might as well start the analysis from the photography part. The film "Roma" uses a lot of deep focal lengths, wide-angle lenses, and backlit shooting methods to create a sacred atmosphere; but Alfonso Cuarón is different from the director of photography Emmanuel Lubezki, who has worked with him for many years. He tried to pan the lens slowly, To show the angle of onlookers, it is in line with the role of the maid Cleo -although she lives in Sra. Sofía's home and has a good relationship with the children, Cleo is not an official member of the family. When she has a scene Sitting next to the children and watching TV with them, Sra. Sofía's words asking her to bring Sr. Antonio a cup of tea had separated Cleo from the rest of the family.
In addition to using a lot of panning lenses, Alfonso Cuarón uses less zoom processing, which can also increase the feeling of watching. When Cleo and Fermín watch La grande vadrouille (La grande vadrouille) in the theater, the camera lens seems to be fixed, allowing us to "watch" Rampage on the big screen, but also let us " Watching the two kissing, and Fermín's intentional evasion because he knew Cleo was pregnant with his own child (Rampage distracts the audience and makes it difficult for us to fully immerse ourselves in Cleo and Fermín's story) ; In addition, after the New Year's carnival, when the forest is on fire, ordinary photographers may use zooming techniques to zoom in on the distant scene of the fire, but Alfonso Cuarón's shooting is a bit "indifferent", and the lens is still "indifferent" imitating He didn't seem to move, expressing a sense of alienation from what was happening in front of him.
The detached relationship between the maid Cleo and the family she serves can easily be associated with her indifferent attitude towards the society she lives in or the problems that arise in this society. response was not strong. This film strives to create the kind of bystander feeling that can be connected with the white middle class in Mexico, the real attitude towards the student movement and the repression of the massacre at that time . The soldiers who were shot and killed in the street also said it lightly, not feeling excited. According to popular sayings, the middle-class families in the film (including Alfonso Cuarón himself at the time) were actually quite "off the ground", although they showed sympathy for the students and the slaughtered (this is like the hostess Sra. Sofía would The servant showed concern and would take Cleo to check herself when she was pregnant), but could not deeply feel the pain of the rebels (Sra. Sofía still clearly distinguishes the relationship between master and servant in the front and middle of the movie), even subconsciously They may not want to see these parade events that disturb their lives, so Alfonso Cuarón borrows Cleo's mouth to say that she actually doesn't want to conceive a child who symbolizes the revolution.
In the part where Sra. Sofía took the children and Cleo to the beach, Cleo could not swim at the beginning, so he could only continue to be a spectator, watching their family play in the water happily. When Sra. Sofía told Cleo and the children the "secret" that her husband had left long ago, and encouraged everyone to go through difficulties together, shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, and later Cleo also spoke his heart, and spoke with Sra. Sofía and the children hug each other on the beach and "build" into a solid pyramid-like shape, Cleo seems to have become one of the Sra. Alfonso Cuarón was still shooting with a panning shot representing a bystander, probably trying to reveal that at this very moment, Cleo was still not fully integrated into the Sra. Sofía family. (If you want to express the effect of blending, you can follow the camera behind Cleo, or use the lens of first vision to present).
In particular, the film did not end when they returned home, and the ending part of returning home was specially added. Not only did the bookshelf in the house were removed but the books were still there, to emphasize that even if the family lost the support of Sr. Antonio But it can continue to move forward, and more importantly, it reflects the family of Cleo and Sra. Sofía, there are still clear boundaries (Cleo was restored as a servant), and it also reflects that Alfonso Cuarón actually knew that he was born in the middle class, In the events that reveal class contradictions, the student movement, and the suppression of massacres, they can only stop and pass by, and there is a barrier that "cannot be fully integrated".
It is worth mentioning that water symbols appear many times in "Rome", such as "tea, laundry water, water droplets on the eaves, running water from the faucet, rain, hail, blood, tears, showerheads, etc." mentioned in this article . Running water, steam, standing water on sheds, drinking water, milk, fire fighting water, ruptured amniotic fluid, alcohol for wiping wounds, muddy sewage in the village, and promises of water conservancy projects from the mouths of government officials..." These waters or their related variants According to my understanding, the symbol of the film symbolizes the protagonist of the film - the woman herself. Although "Roma" is not a feminist film, it has care for women; The waves of Duan, before and after (there is also a picture of a deliberately tilted wave hanging in the room of Cleo and Fermín's "Cannon" in the middle section), from the scouring of the ground to the scouring of the soul, witnessing Cleo's inner transformation, his The ups and downs of fate and the vast and turbulent sea also symbolize the social turmoil at that time and the sense of powerlessness that people faced or lived in that era.
The actress Yalitza Aparicio, who plays the maid Cleo, is originally an amateur. Her "light", natural, controlled, and even a bit dull acting style is in line with the spectator-style, engaging audience that the film aims to achieve. There is still a distance-like effect with the characters, which complement each other; but the clever thing is that because of the large number of long shots in the movie, it is easy for everyone to slowly immerse in the inner story or world. Alfonso Cuarón continued to try to use the lens, image, and film language to explain the ideas and emotions that the film wanted to express, but did not rely on the language of dialogue (although there seem to be many symbols, contrasting images or slow panning shots in the film) ; And when the audience after Alfonso Cuarón finished filming "Gravity", looking forward to how his next work will be "flying in the sky" and the scene is magnificent, Alfonso Cuarón, like the Profesor Zovek in the play, made a seemingly Ordinary and unremarkable, but in the current impetuous film industry, there may only be a few directors who can complete the action.
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