Roma (2018) is a film written, directed, filmed, edited and produced by Alfonso Cuarón, known for films such as And Your Mother Too (Y tu Mamá también, 2001), Children of Men (2006) and most recently Gravity (2013). If you have not yet dared to watch this beautiful work distributed by Netflix, perhaps for fear of its slow pace, here is the plot. Roma follows the life of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio), the maid with Mixtecan origins of a middle-class Mexican family living in the neighborhood of Colonia Roma in Mexico City in the 1970s.
Roma and Foucault
Roma is first of all the story of a woman. Living a simple life, Cleo lives in function of the family for whom she works. She not only cleans the stool that the family dog leaves in the garage, but she takes care of each of the four children with deep affection. In the short time that Cleo seems to have free, she exchanges confidences with her work colleague and friend Adela (Nancy Garcia Garcia). It is through Adela that Cleo knows Fermin (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), who gets her pregnant. The narrative may seem relatively banal, and yet the story of Cleo, who reflects the history of so many other women, is above all extremely personal: it is the life of Libo, former maid of Alfonso Cuarón's family. In this sense the film is autobiographical, but instead of telling his own personal memories, Cuarón tells the story of someone whose voice was always silenced by the circumstances of life. The family we see in the film is precisely the family of Cuarón - Cuarón being the second oldest son - and the film is, therefore, the mirror of two memories that cross each other: the one of Libo and the one of Cuarón. Cuarón expresses, however, not his childish point of view, but his adult perspective, who today, aware of the social and racial context of the society in which he lived and lives, observes the experiences of Libo from another optic. Such memorial character of the film is expressed by an exceptional cinematography in translucent black and white (by the way extremely well crafted by Cuarón himself). Cuarón's talent can also be seen in the way he moves his camera, whether with panoramic shots, travellings, close-ups and long-shots. The "look" of Cuarón never judges, it simply moves fluidly, like a ghost that floats on all sides. In addition to the photography, other technical choices give the film a nostalgic tone that we could almost see as a tribute to the Italian Neorealism of the 1940s, whose works coincidentally also have a strong social connotation. As in films of Neorealism, here we also find the option for non-professional actors and external settings, rather than studios. These characteristics give the narrative the realism from which it draws its strength. In addition, the performance of Yalitza Aparicio may seem strange, even uncomfortable, to those accustomed to Hollywood cinema, but precisely because of its simplicity and sobriety, it expresses reactions with a lot of authenticity, and not in an exaggeratedly "reproductive" way as long-time actors tend.
More than the portrait of a life, Roma is the manifestation of the complexities of a form of social organization. There are different types of relationship between different characters and they vary according to different contexts: social class, racial belonging, sexual gender. How to explain this complexity? Before examining how this issue appears in the context of the film, I propose that we take a look at what the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984) - known for his bald head - has to tell us about the relationships we establish socially, something that I believe can help us better understand the complexity of the film's plot. According to Foucault in his work Discipline and Punish, in every relationship there is a relation of forces, in such a way that power is not something that we have, but something that is established according to the manner each interaction is constituted. If classical political theories usually identify power with specific institutions such as the state or the church, for Foucault power results mainly from processes of personal interaction between individuals and it is thus omnipresent: "[power] is conceived not as a property, but as a strategy, that its effects of domination are attributed not to 'appropriation', but to dispositions, manoeuvres, tactics, techniques, functionings"(Discipline and Punish). Therefore, power is a practice that works most often as maintenance of a certain social order pre-established and legitimized by ourselves through our behaviors, speeches, actions, etc., as we shall see below. As a consequence power is not only a political force exerted by specific institutions, but part of it manifests itself in "miniature" in daily interactions in the form of micro-power. These micro-powers are exercised by certain individuals (for example, teachers on their students, men on women, etc.) and by certain institutions (such as prisons, schools, asylums, etc.) and are endorsed by discourses we create to justify them. Thus, while the manifestation of political power is characterized by the repression and imposition of laws, micro-power, on the contrary, manifests itself in a sneaky way, through a set of practices, mechanisms and devices that we reproduce socially daily, often without even realizing it: "Furthermore, this power is not exercised simply as an obligation or a prohibition on those who 'do not have it'; it invests them, is transmitted by them and through them"(Discipline and Punish). The normalization of micro-power occurs in such a way that several times even the "dominated" themselves reproduce speeches that justify their domination: "In short this power is exercised rather than possessed; it is not the 'privilege', acquired or preserveil, of the dominant class, but the overall effect of its strategic positions - an effect that is manifested and sometimes extended by the position of those who are dominated"(Discipline and Punish).
The women of Roma
In Roma this micro-physical manifestation of power appears in almost every relation between the characters: in the authoritarian way the parents treat the children, in the distance imposed by the bosses to the employees, in the negligence of Fermín in relation to the pregnancy of Cleo, etc. This happens because power interweaves in a micro-physical way in our daily personal interactions, which are always constituted by a correlation of forces, as if each interaction was a game of tug of war. Each conversation, each gesture is a different match in which both sides have the same "amount" of force, but our society is constituted in such a way that most of the time one of the sides already let go its side of the rope before even trying to pull it, believing that the other side certainly "has" more power. In every relationship between husband and wife, for example, there is a certain dynamic of power that is the result of a set of strategies that have established themselves and created the molds of what we consider to be the institution of heterosexual marriage. These molds were invented, improved, transmitted, imitated and applied, so that, for example, even today, the idea still prevails that the husband is the active agent and therefore has the right to make decisions, while the woman is the passive instance that "only" nurses and helps. The same thing happens in the relationship between parents and children, between different sexes or even in the way we deal intimately with our own bodies. For example when we believe that masturbation is a "normal" activity for men, but rare or frowned upon for women. What Foucault notes is that none of these relations would necessarily have to be this way. A man has no more power than a woman, but there is a set of strategies (i.e. mentalities, behaviors, speeches, etc. we reproduce) that makes it possible for men to place themselves in a position of superiority over women. This position is therefore not a privilege acquired by men, but merely a consequence of strategies that legitimize this position (ourselves being the legitimators).
In Roma there is a relationship that is especially complex because in it there are expressed various forms of power relations: the relation between Cleo and Sofia (Marina de Tavira). From the socio-economic point of view, Sofia seems to be deeply condescending with Cleo, which is a common feature of the treatment of the poorer classes by a large part of the middle / upper class. Since Sofia treats Cleo from the perspective of the boss issuing an order, her way of speaking and behaving with Cleo is vertical. This is notable in several scenes, but especially in the scene of the family watching television and in which Sofia asks Cleo to fetch a tea for her husband, annoyed by Cleo who is sitting and hugging one of the children, as if she was part of the family. The condescension and harshness of Sofia seems, however, more like the result of an unconscious form of bourgeois behavior, than the expression of a trace of Sofia's personality herself. This, of course, does not exempt Sofia from the responsibility of her petulant actions, but it shows just what Foucault explains us. Our small daily social practices tend to corroborate a certain form of relationship between lower classes and upper classes according to which poorer people are seen as "inferior". Take the example above of a common situation in which employees and bosses watch a movie together. Sofia's behavior is only the reproduction of a molded and socially accepted attitude of someone in a higher class who contributes to the maintenance of this status quo by ensuring that the middle / upper class continues to exercise power in their relationship with poorer classes. And when Sofia acts the way she acts, screaming at Cleo when her life annoys her or ignoring her existence when it suits her, she endorses this relationship of strength.
But despite reproducing an arrogant bourgeois behavior, Sofia's affection for Cleo seems genuine. This affection deepens thanks to the solidarity that arises between the two due to the situation that each one lives with their respective companions. Thus, from the feminine point of view, Sofia and Cleo feel empathy for each other. Let's say that in this tug of war match none of the sides not even wishes to pull the rope, which falls on the floor. Both experience unstable love relationships with men who are coward and selfish. Both Antonio (Sofia's husband) and Fermín do not assume the consequences of their actions - the first with respect to the family he created, the second with respect to the girlfriend he impregnated - and abandon their companions, who suddenly find themselves completely alone, the first with 4 children to raise and the second with a pregnancy to deal with. In the context of the film, we see that men's actions are exposed as a result of an aberrant fact: men always seem to be able to simply leave. This happens precisely because, as Foucault shows, there is a dynamic in the relations between men and women, which is constantly maintained by our social practices, attitudes and even our speeches, according to which women are automatically responsible for the children, but there are no social "norms" that establishes that men have an equal share of responsibility. The neglect of men is always justified, thanks to the position of superiority conferred upon them. This superiority is legitimized by several small actions. Fermín's cousin knows that he has impregnated Cleo, and yet at no time he seems to act as if his cousin's attitude were irresponsible (on the contrary, he even tries to "hide" his cousin from Cleo). In the same way, Sofia's friends know that her husband has left her, and yet, during New Year's Eve, one of her friends tries to kiss her instead of comforting her. These behaviors seem insignificant, but it is precisely these attitudes that manifest the micro-power, showing that in each small action that we perform we corroborate (or not) a form of relation that inferiorizes one of the parts.
The reality of Roma
But Roma is not just the story of a woman. Roma is the story of a form of social organization. The central focus of the narrative is certainly Cleo's life. But around this existence there is a whole Mexican social (and historical) context that initially seems to be only a detail of the story, and yet these brushstrokes of reality offer us clues about the behavior of the characters because they explain the functioning of the society in which they are inserted. From this point of view, Cleo's life could be seen as "a thread of a rich tapestry." This tapestry is highlighted at various times. During the "Corpus Christi Massacre" Cleo leaves the frame, but the camera remains in the same position, focusing on a woman sobbing while holding her murdered companion in her arms. In another scene, after Sofia tells her children that she and their father are separating, the sad family shares an ice cream outside the restaurant. Behind them, a newly married couple celebrates their nuptials with a band and dancing guests. The contrast between the two situations is ironic. But it is in one of the first scenes that this tapestry is notorious. Cleo pauses in the laundry space and lies next to Pepe, both pretending to be dead on the roof of the house. The camera moves and in the background we see maids on a dozen other roofs washing and hanging clothes. Roma may be special for putting a woman like Cleo at the center of its narrative, but this sequence suggests precisely that she is just the tip of the iceberg, one among others. All these women have stories that are certainly worth telling.
These examples put in evidence the banality of micro-power, which encrusts itself on every seemingly normal small situation. Whether in the bosses, who can afford to count on maids to take care of all their needs; whether in the government that can afford to neglect the death of its individuals; whether in the newly married couple, who represent hope in the possibility of a "husband / wife" relationship that does not reproduce the inequalities experienced by Sofia in her marriage. The three situations portray everyday interactions (employee / employer, citizen / government, husband / wife) that in themselves are not necessarily unfair. But in each of these relationships there is a power relation that tends to develop in which one side is silenced. This tendency is, as Foucault warns us, the fruit of the reproduction of discourses and actions that normalize this inequality. In none of these relations one of the parties is superior to the other, but there are socially perpetuated devices that allow one party to potentially place itself in a position of superiority over the other. The New Year party is the best example of the normalization of a form of unequal social relation. In this scene it is above all the division of classes that becomes evident. While families have fun in the main house, servants organize their own party downstairs - following the traditional "upstairs / downstairs" division. When a forest fire invades the family property, servants line up in a chain, trying to put out the fire, while members of the rich family drink wine and watch the "spectacle". And yet upper-class people don't have more power than low-class people, but our society is organized in such a way that we believe and legitimize the superiority of the rich. This is what enables the rich in this scene to remain apathetic, certain that the employees will act according to the belief in their position of inferiority. Therefore, the rich are not privileged, they can simply afford to exercise power over others because there are daily practices that endorse the belief that they have the right to own privileges. This possession, however, is an illusion.
Roma is the story of a reality that we experience daily. In each gesture, speech or action we perpetuate forms of power-relations that silence one of the parties. Sometimes, without even realizing it, we corroborate through each of our daily interactions a social order that tends to be unfair and diminishes the existence of the other. Cleo is one of those many voices that are silenced and yet, without saying many words, she has so much to tell us. In her simplicity and sweetness, Cleo teaches us that silence does not mean ignorance, that affection does not mean having the same blood, that patience does not mean indifference, and that guilt does not make us bad people. Above all, Cleo teaches us that empathy destroys all social inequality - even if just for a moment - and that in solidarity we find the humans who reside behind the illusion of power. Empathy overrides the belief in the superiority of one of the sides of the tug of war, placing both as equals. Sofia and Cleo are both equally abandoned and equally humiliated women, but above all equally affectionate and equally strong. Solidarity allows them to become above all equally human in each other's eyes, dissolving the abyss that the "employer / mistress" relationship establishes. When Cleo announces her pregnancy to Sofia, the latter does not treat the situation from the economic point of view of a boss who sees the maid's pregnancy as a hindrance, much to Cleo's surprise. This affection between the characters allows Roma to become the expression of a story that is personal, but universal, because the empathy we witness on the screen invites us to "feel" with Cleo. It's a realistic, but dreamlike narrative, since it is a mixture of real memories and personal perspectives. It is a simple but complex plot, for even if certain features of Cleo's life may seem trivial, Cuarón values the singularity of this banality through a magnanimous cinematographic gaze. We see "Cleos" everywhere: people who cross our paths daily and whose lives seem "unimportant" to us, people whom we treat with indifference and even a certain condescension. But Roma alerts us to the care we should have with each of our relationships, for we tend to repeat a set of practices that inferiorizes the other and perpetuates inequalities. As Roma teaches us, every human being is worthy of a beautiful film that expresses all the splendor of their existence, because a beautiful existence is not a privilege that belongs to only certain individuals. Cleo is proof of this fact. Cleo is a great heroine not because she altruistically saved the little Pepe in the sea in one of the final scenes. Cleo is a great heroine because while everyone tries in vain to remain in balance while raising one leg, she simply performs such act in all her innocence and kindness, and while she is ignored by the others around who do not realize her prowess, Cleo follows her path quietly, aware that power is a mere illusion, but unaware of the greatness of her soul. And this greatness of soul is what makes Roma a beautiful work.
Comments