The culmination of Alfonso Cuarón’s career, Roma is perhaps the most unlikely movie to ever dominate a Best Picture line-up. It’s slow. It’s in black-and-white. It’s in a mixture of Spanish and Mixtec. It focuses on the life of a maid.
Somehow it’s one of the best films of the year, an astonishing homage to the resilience of one woman played out against the backdrop of civil unrest. Using an Alexa 65mm camera, and taking on cinematographic duties himself, Cuarón explores the full possibility of the frame, putting his film heads and shoulders above the competition.
Simply for its technical prowess alone — its depth of focus, its exquisite use of lighting and revolutionary sound mix — Roma should win Best Picture. There are obvious cinematic influences, among them the riotous nature of Fellini and the slow, searching camera of Angelopolous, but here he combines all his personal obsessions — motherhood, sex, heaven and earth, being simultaneously inside and outside politics — into a complete cinematic vision.
The fact that it is no mere director’s showcase but also tells a deeply moving story of finding love despite all of the odds makes Roma a modern classic, fully deserving of its Fellini-evoking name.