Roma

I think about Roma a lot. I've only seen it twice, and not recently but it's on my mind a lot more than any other films are. Roma was a look into a world I've only heard in stories. My father grew up in a similar household to the title family's, in the same time period. He was the child that a woman Cleo would be looking after, he was the child sitting in front of the TV at night after dinner. This lifestyle is still around today, whenever I would visit my grandparents home in Mexico they would have several young servants cleaning, cooking, running errands and as someone from a middle class background in the states it was, and still is a shock for me to see. All of this makes Roma an experience deeply personal, I wasn't being sucked into a world of fantasy and Hollywood slickness, I was being placed in the world that my father saw, the world that I see the effects of today. This world is grippingly real, and I think it contributes to the performances of the cast. They are acting within the society, the hierarchy of their world. This film feels alive in a way that very few other films manage to achieve because it doesn't pull any punches, it is Mexico City in 1969, warts and all. It is not a nostalgic reflection of a good childhood, it is a critical examination of how cuaron was raised, and the world around him was structured. Even when Cleo and Sofia have a moment of connection, even when their struggles align, Sofia is still the master and Cleo is the servant. Cleo is the one cleaning the dog shit. That message, that depiction of a taboo topic on screen has stuck with me for years after I initially viewed Roma.