Roma

About his newest film, Roma, Alfonso Cuarón has stated, “There are periods in history that scar societies and moments in life that transform us as individuals. Time and space constrain us, but they also define who we are, creating inexplicable bonds with others that flow with us at the same time and through the same places. Roma is an attempt to capture the memory of events that I experienced almost fifty years ago.”  In Roma, we witness a year in the life of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio). She’s a young maid to a middle class family in Mexico City, where political turmoil is brewing. Over the year, Cleo gets pregnant and together with the family faces abandonment and harrowing life and death situations.

Cuarón captures some amazing details that feel right out of an old memory. The badly-tuned marching band coming down the street, the car that can barely fit in the gated driveway, and a home full of taxidermy old dogs feel like weird snippets from childhood memories. Even the way the camera pans through the family home feels nostalgic.

One of my favorite scenes is the New Year’s Eve party that turns into a wildfire. The image of all these people outside in their party attire, holding drinks and passing buckets of water around to throw on the fire is amazing. Add in the kid in his astronaut outfit and that one guy in the big costume singing makes the whole thing feels wonderfully surreal. His singing mixed with screams as the tree falls one of the best moments of the film.

I feel a need to warn readers of one of the most intensely heartbreaking moments I have ever seen in film. ***Spoiler Alert*** The scene depicts Cleo giving birth to a stillborn baby. The camera unflinchingly captures the whole scene in one long shot, which I’ve heard was only done once and with real doctors for authenticity. It is so very authentic and as a mother to two young children it is heart wrenching. I was shocked and so upset by the scene that I had to pause the film until I had stopped sobbing. I’m so glad this was on Netflix so I didn’t cause a scene in a theater. Never has a film made me cry so hard, ever.

Roma is nominated for an astounding ten Academy Awards. These include best foreign language film, cinematography, original screenplay, production design, sound editing, sound mixing and Best Picture. Yalitza Aparicio, who has never acted before is nominated for best actress. Marina de Tavira is nominated for best supporting actress. And Cuarón has earned his second nomination for best director.

The roles of men and women in Roma are drastically different. The men, mainly Antonio and Fermin, abandon their families. Antonio is so clueless that his own children see him out running the streets with his mistress. And Fermin is so heartless he cruelly tells Cleo to leave him alone and is part of the riot that breaks out. It’s awful to see him pointing a gun at his unborn child. Whereas, the roles of women are to keep order in the face of all this chaos. Cleo keeps house and gets ready for a baby. Sofia keeps her family together. And in the climatic beach scene, Cleo saves two of the children, despite not being able to swim. I think it’s easy to see Cuarón respects the women in his life who have faced so much adversity.

“We are alone. No matter what they tell you, we women are always alone.”

Gravity

As I watched the opening scene in Gravity, I was in awe.  Right away, just seeing these astronauts float around on a routine space walk, the film was beautiful and thrilling.  A few minutes in, a couple behind me in the theater remarked with a sneer, “Where are all the satellites and shit?”  Their sarcastic question was more than answered and they didn’t make a peep the rest of the movie.  I believe the whole audience was absolutely spellbound.

In Gravity Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer turned relatively inexperienced astronaut.  As she and more experience astronaut, Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) work together, we understand that space is not her element, but perhaps an escape from her troubles on Earth.  During the opening space walk, satellite debris comes crashing at the astronauts, destroying much of the space station around them.  It’s a horrifyingly beautiful sight to see and clearly sets up the fear and danger of being stranded floating in space.  After the danger has passed, and Ryan and Matt are harnessed together, they realize their only chance of survival is to get to another space station, which means drifting through space in the right direction without running out of oxygen.

Many of the scenes are one continuous longshot.  In fact, the opening scene is over twelve minutes without a single break.  Granted, it is digitally edited from multiple takes to seamlessly flow into one continuous image, but still, my God their effect is amazing.  Hitchcock might have been green with envy of all the suspense they produce.

One thing that seemed to damper the film when it was first released was how many scientific inaccuracies could be spotted throughout the film.  For some people, that ruined it, if it’s not accurate then why care?  Personally, I don’t find the inaccuracies to be a problem, let it be fiction and if it’s good enough, I’ll believe what I want to.  However, when Ryan does nothing to stop those little bits of fire floating around the Russian space station, I got a little more ticked than concerned.  Floating fire does not seem like something a trained astronaut would ignore.

At ten nominations, Gravity is tied for the most nominated film of 2013 with American Hustle.  While American Hustle racked up the acting nominations, Gravity got its boost from more technical awards, including visual effects, cinematography, sound editing and sound mixing.  It is also nominated for Best Picture, production design, original score, film editing.  Alfonso Cuarón received his first Oscar nomination for best director and Sandra Bullock received her second nomination as lead actress.

Overall, Gravity is a captivating thrill ride of a film that clearly deserves all this Oscar love. From the moment those wayward satellites crashed in, to the very end, I was on the edge of my seat, nervous, excited and enjoying every minute.

“Because either way, it’s going to be one hell of a ride!  I’m ready.”

Children of Men

Children symbolize so much to humanity.  Each is a clean slate, innocent and full of contagious joy.  As adults, we strive to create a brighter future with them in mind.  And for each parent, they are a precious gift, a piece of themselves that gets to live on.  Imagining a world without children, means a world with no hope for the future.

In Children of Men, the human race has become infertile and the youngest living person, eighteen year old baby Diego, has just been killed.  There are hints that the world has been ravaged from nuclear war, pollution, disease and violence.  While it seems that many other countries have fallen, Britain limps on.  Bombings and violence are regular occurrences.  Within every citizen’s rations are anti depressants and a suicide kit, yet marijuana is still illegal.  The government works like a terrorist network to track down, publicly cage, and even execute illegal aliens (mostly survivors from fallen nations, I assume).  This near futuristic world is bleak, unsettling and dangerous.

Theo (Clive Owen) is a hardened man, just existing in this crumbling world.  He has a history of rebellion against the government.  His friend and retired political cartoonist, Jasper (Michael Cane), has successfully made a happy home off the grid, where he grows and sells marijuana.  When a woman from his past, Julian (Julianne Moore), asks for his help in illegally transporting a young woman, Kee (Clare-Hope Ashitey), there is much more at stake than he could have imagined.

One thing that I find amazing about this film is the way director Alfonso Cuarón makes use of long shots.  Though most are digitally spliced together and not traditional long shots like Hitchcock used, they hold our attention and create suspense just as wonderfully.  In one, the camera stays within a car and rotates to show us the action inside and outside the car, going from a fun memory shared, to chaos, violence and tragedy without blinking away.  Toward the end, a shot lasts for over six minutes, following Theo as he moves through an erupting uprising.  Violence spirals all around, bullets seem to be whizzing and popping from all over and he searches through the chaos and despair for Kee and her most precious cargo.

At the Academy Awards, Children of Men was nominated for three awards: best cinematography, film editing and adapted screenplay.  They were lost to The Departed and Pan’s Labyrinth.  The running for best picture was pretty tight, but if there had been ten nominees, Children of Men would have surely secured a nomination.

Children of Men is a powerful, thought provoking film portraying a desperate world with no hope.  Set only fifteen years in the future now, I’m always relieved when science fiction is not likely to become reality.  Since the tone is so bleak, even when hope emerges, it may not be the most enjoyable film for everyone.  However, this is a recent film done so well, in both visual technology and story line, that I believe it is destined to become a classic.

“As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very odd, what happens in a world without children’s voices.”