Let's Anticipate Alfonso Cuaron's ROMA

but also boring manipulative crap

Sensation without substance.

why is this called Roma?

Neighbourhood of Mexico City it's set in

ah cool, ta.

it made me like Fellini's own dog Roma a little more

I haven't read this thread yet, but I thought this was great.

Don't read this thread

this thread is best viewed on the big screen

Ugh, I'm with jed, Alfred, et al -- this just pissed me off. I remember long ago reading a critique of Frank Zappa -- "a gratuitous display of advanced technique" -- it applies here.

it wasn't really that advanced or impressive cinematographically imo

I was very impressed that they had built such a stable dolly track on sand

I found the quasi-mumblecore first half extraordinary, delectable, precise. Goes wildly off the rails as the action becomes less prosaic and the emotion is amped up. And then it just goes on and on... It had such a good thing going

there was something about the tamped down quality of it that made the heightened emotion of the last part kind of thrilling I thought, the scene on the beach in particular really got to me

the whole thing just felt so in the moment

I liked this. I think it's always kind of hard when someone makes more popular commercial movies and then makes something self-consciously arty. It can feel like an act of imposture. There's a nice myth that arty directors make arty movies because that's the only kind they can make, because that's who they are. We are resistant to the idea that "serious" is just another genre. Especially when someone pulls out all the obvious signifiers: like black-and-white, lack of soundtrack, slow-pacing, long takes, etc. There's something a bit too eager to please, a bit too A-student, about it. On the other hand, it is "just" another genre, but so what. I guess I would have had a lot fewer hurdles to get over if this was made by some European director I'd never heard of before. But none of that really matters. It's hard not to notice that this movie is pretty interesting to look at. The story is fairly simple and affecting. You could summarize pretty much all the plot in a few sentences. But it's mostly everything that would be left out of those few sentences that makes this a good movie.

alfred otm i hated this

although i thought the sound design was incredible, whether it is cuaron or someone else who is responsible for that in his films they all capture ambient noise so well. wind, waves, animals, traffic, children shouting at each other

yes

can't hate this film tbh, it won me over

I rolled my eyes at this film uniformly sweeping all the critics awards, and I can understand people watching this thinking it was boring, but I enjoyed seeing such a beautiful understated film completely immersed in a different world. It’s about time that a foreign language film again became mainstream for US audiences. When was the last one, Crouching Tiger in 2000?

I love Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Hirokazu Kore-eda, Lucrecia Martel, Claire Denis, Hong Sang-soo, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Jia Zhangke, Carlos Reygadas, Andrey Zvayginstev, Lee Chang-dong and others, but as foreign language directors it seems like films by them are a long way off from appealing to mainstream US sensibilities. I hope it happens. Kudos to Alfonso Cuarón for breaking through

Y Tu Mama Tambien isn't much liked on ILX, but it handles Mexican politics, the tensions between the patrician class and their less secure minders, and cinephilia in a fresher, more generous manner than this stilted thing.

yea I felt the same way (i love y tu mama tambien fwiw)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ihtEg_hWIM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_film

Liked parts of this angry review

I rolled my eyes at this film uniformly sweeping all the critics awards, and I can understand people watching this thinking it was boring, but I enjoyed seeing such a beautiful understated film completely immersed in a different world. It’s about time that a foreign language film again became mainstream for US audiences. When was the last one, Crouching Tiger in 2000?

― Dan S, Sunday, February 3, 2019 6:23 AM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i def. have that sense.... i didn't love this movie but, like moonlight (a film i did not love but appreciated) it's simply a good thing that a film like this should come across the radars of folks who would otherwise not some into contact w/ its sort of storytelling approach.

i know that's a very Basic sort of take. and i hate when critics attempt to shield a movie or book from criticism because it is the "right" kind of art that they feel should be encouraged. (which seems like what sometimes happened w/ sorry to bother you IMO.) i don't think Roma needs anyone's apoogies. i just (1) am not as personally enthused by it as i had hoped and (2) am heartened by its robust reception.

re that review - interesting to contemplate, but I wasn’t thinking about the current day politics of this when I watched it. it just felt like a complete immersion into Mexico City in 1970, with many memorable scenes. it seemed very real to me

Yalitza Aparicio's almost silent but emotional performance made me love this film more than anything else

she was fine. I hated the move but it's a good performance.

Good point on the silence although it doesn't make up for the deficiencies in conception.

That review comes from a marxist and feminist perspective. The re-framing of the playing dead scene was good.

That review seems unhinged to me. I think people are reacting more to the discussion around the movie than the movie itself. I humbly submit that people have unreasonable expectations if they are expecting a movie to right 500 years of exploitation.

yeah, that review raises many valid points, but they mostly don't apply to the movie itself.

the long takes with an extremely wide angle lens and depth-of-field-to-infinity in every shot gives Roma a feeling of distance, which on paper doesn’t sound great but it was unusual and I really liked it, it had a meditative quality. It made it harder to connect with the characters initially but for me that was corrected with a second viewing.

those tracking shots of the characters walking and running through the streets of Mexico City both during the day and at night were so great, there was something about the cinematography in those moments that made them shimmer. the scenes of the hacienda at night at Christmas were also really really striking

I didn't really get the long scene with the forest fire and people walking around with buckets throwing them at the flames. was it supposed to be allegorical?

the whole extended sequence at the house of the rich relatives was pointing out class differences I thought. it seemed particularly evident during the fire, where the servants and the locals passed buckets to extinguish the flames while the rich family members looked on and sipped their wine, as if they couldn't be touched by it or by anything really. We get to hear an epic song (sung in Norwegian?) by the man dressed as a demon. I read that it was about longing for home, and it contrasts with a panoramic scene with the caretakers and the kids out in a field where Cleo reminisces about her home.

A heartwarming tale of how a movie can move the conversation forward:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/23/opinion/roma-mexico-workers-rights.html

I loved reading that, thank you

Finally saw this, thought it was good, looked good, etc. A lot of the complaints I missed at the time but have since skimmed (in this thread and elsewhere) seem to channel disappointment that Cuaron is not the Dardenne brothers. But while I do find the discussion of what the film is not to be sometimes educational and some of the criticisms particularly valid - it's for sure indulgent, and definitely thematically diffuse - I didn't think anything in the film was objectionable enough to evoke the utter disdain I saw from some of the more hardcore detractors.

Speaking of which, Soto. I liked what you wrote, but if you're listening, your review way back when references a brief moment of color. Did I miss it?

this will go down in history as a great film regardless of the opinions of ilxors