De Nosotros, Con Amor

A
of my family and has been our greatest
companion and friend. She has changed
my life for the better and she teaches me
something new every day. And despite all
this, her life outside of my home remains
almost entirely a mystery to my family
and me.
The movie Roma by Alfonso Cuarón
follows Cleo, a maid working for an
upper-middle-class family in Mexico
City throughout a year in her life,
both in the family’s house and in her
ventures outside of the family. The
movie is a tribute to the day-to-day
life of an upper-middle-class family in
70’s Mexico City and a reality based on
Cuarón’s childhood memories and his
recollections of Libo, his family’s maid
during his childhood. Deep into his
adulthood and career as a professional
filmmaker, Cuarón felt that he owed
some sort of tribute or recognition to
women, like Libo, who are the backbone
and balance of Mexican society. Cleo
represents this in the film, and Rosi
and Mari have represented it in my own
life. The movie deals with classism and
racism, among other social issues, which
are still present in Mexican society even
50 years after the movie’s setting. It
reflects the way that these racist and
classist tendencies, represented through
the treatment of Cleo and other maids,
are embedded within our country. There
are over 2.3 million domestic workers in
Mexico, most of which are regarded as
inferior and less worthy, and are treated
as such.
The film’s cinematography itself is
designed to evoke nostalgia. The film is
shot in a digital black and white rather
than a stylized cinematic black and
white. Even though the film is meant
to evoke a sense of nostalgia and of
looking into the past, Cuarón did not
intend for it to have the “vintage” feel
we all know so well. This choice was an
attempt to get his audience to regard the
film as a memory; as looking back at a
moment in time from the present, in full
consciousness, rather than being entirely
transported to the past. Cuarón’s intent
was to play with the audience’s senses
to provide the fullest, most complete
experience of memory. In addition to
sight, Cuarón utilizes sound to submerge
the audience in as full of a nostalgic
experience as possible. The attention to
detail in both the sound design and the
visuals of the film is one of the reasons
why it was so successful both in Mexico
and internationally. Through the streets
in the movie, you can hear and see the
street vendors that, to this day, roam
Mexico City shouting the same lines and
selling the same puppets, balloons, and
whistles as they did in the 70s; they are
part of an iconic Mexican image you
cannot find anywhere else.
The film begins with a shot pointing at
a tile floor. The camera stays still for a
minute or so before there is any sort
of movement, only for the stillness to
be broken by a wave of water mixed
with soap, and the sound of a broom
sweeping and cleaning the floor. Even
after having moved out of my Mexico
18