Review of Roma (2018)
Seen in 2019.
Cuarón’s team’s cinematography does not disappoint. The amateur Aparicio is very good as the hyphenated under-educated working-class native-American woman of colour, an excellent focal point for a nostalgic period piece that is neither cynical nor naïve. The narrative built around her is a curious mix of the understated and the overstated: She personally meets not only Fermín in his true form as a fascist killer but also the missing doctor, and both of these meetings are redundant to the resolution of their respective mysteries. It’s a moving story, much more grounded and logical than Children of Men (2006), but less ambitious.