There's
a subgenre in Hollywood. Beyond the endless parade of cash grab
superhero, sci-fi, budget horror and romantic comedies, there is a
movie genre known as the Art House Movie. There's nothing wrong with
an AHM. Some are exceptionally well-made (Moonlight), with great
thematic elements (The Florida Project) and even enable
long-forgotten actors to finally nab whatever award-season gold that
has been eluding them over their long, sometimes illustrious careers
(Little Miss Sunshine). The genre is merely a different type of hook
for the ever expanding fishing rod of Hollywood. Some movies
(well...almost all of them) are built as disposable, loud reels of
scattered humor and forgettable plot to pull in that big fish of
monumental profits for the sake of paying for the shiny, fragile
hook. Others (mostly the AHM stuff) are meant to nab the slightly
less valuable (but totally more braggadocios) fish known as OSCAR.
For Alfonso Cuaron's latest Roma, I sense gold plating over cheap tin
in its future.
Okay,
look, if you like movies as an art form (which means you are either a
filmmaker, wannabe filmmaker or a critic), you will probably love
Roma. It's beautifully shot, heartfelt, well-acted, nearly perfectly
directed and, like pretty much every Cuaron movie ever made, guides
its viewer, seemingly by hand, through the story it weaves while
still making you feel like you might have missed some minute detail
because you had to blink too many times at one point. Throw in
newcomer Yalitza Aparicio as the put-upon Cleo and Marina de Tavira
as a strong mother trying to allow a disintegrating marriage to fall
apart gracefully and you have the beating heart that is the very
theme of the entire story: Ordinary people with ordinary lives with
real meaning behind all that ordinary. And I DARE you not to cry when
that realization comes.
Unfortunately,
like mentioned before, Roma is a piece of art strictly for art's
sake, meaning that, outside of the ever shrinking circle of film
majors and critics, the reasons for watching this becomes pretty
non-existent when compared to the much less weighty fare that
actually draws audiences this time of the year. This, plus the fact
that it was pretty much made for an audience of perhaps ten to
fifteen people (Cuaron, his immediate family and the housekeeper he
dedicates it to) pushes it further behind the brick wall of of
accessibility already erected due to the obvious language barriers
(the movie is in both Spanish and Mixteco).
As for
watching it, are you planning on following any of the post-Oscar buzz
to the theater? Since the Oscars are (as of this writing) two hours
away and counting and Roma is currently the hands-on favorite to not
only win some of the big categories but win big for both the best
(its a beautiful film) and worst (it feels like it was nominated more
for the “woke” Hollywood nonsense than its obvious artistic
value) of reasons, its probably a great time to watch it conveniently
if you have the time (it IS a Netflix original, after all). Have you
already reached that point where you would rather shove sharp objects
into your eyes rather than give Hollywood the satisfaction of
watching one of their heavily-awarded, artistically heavy movies?
Well, due to the whole “It's on Netflix” thing previously
mentioned, you can easily watch this without giving Hollywood any of
your money and still enjoy this film for what it is. Its a good movie
that you can watch and still stick it to Hollywood. What's not to
like (other than the whole forced-to-read-subtitles thing)?
Alfonso
Cuaron (Gravity) goes for what should be his third Oscar (but is
actually only his second) with Roma, a love letter to the woman who
raised him as a child growing up in Mexico City. When Cleo
(Aparicio), a domestic servant who helps Antonio (Fernando Grediaga)
and Sofia (de Tavira) care for their four children in the 1970s
Mexico City district of Colonia Roma, discovers that she is pregnant,
she finds her dilemma coinciding with the dissolution of Antonio and
Sofia's marriage as well as the chaos of the still-ongoing Mexican
Dirty War of the era. I'm not saying anymore. Go watch it yourself.
My
score: 9/10. The fact that a person named Yalitza Aparicio is
nominated for Best Actress this year seems to confirm my long-held
belief that Oscar voters hate statue engravers and nominate hard to
pronounce/spell names merely to torment said engravers into watching
the ceremony to discover how bad their eventual headache will be.
Freaking Hollywood sadists...
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