12/16/18 - Roma (2018) - 7-/10

Every year there seems to be at least one film that I just don’t seem to get what everyone else sees. I am sure we all experience that. Sometimes things just don’t click. This year Roma is the film that just didn’t do it for me. I liked it but the universal love that appears to be its birthright avoided me.

Seeing it on a big screen truly lets it’s magic loose, to deep into the pores of your eyes and imagination. I can’t imagine it being half as effective on the television. It is almost made more for IMAX than anything. Mostly because it is truly “every frame a painting”, with such beautiful tableaus captured constantly. I mean, absolutely gorgeous and unrelenting, but it lacked an emotional hook to capture my everything. I just kept waiting to melt into the film but it seemed like there was an empathic pane of glass between myself and the pathos of the film.

Roma is essentially a slice of life that moves that lives with its own natural circadian rhythm but not a dramatic rhythm. That does emphasize a naturalness, emphasizing the constant and non-story nature of true life. That said, I was asking myself how much I desired the “this is the life of a maid and the family she works for, as we slog through cleaning dog shit, parking cars, doing dishes, and turning off lights” film experience. I get its slow involving journey to make the emotional pops devastate when they blossom, but my interest as something more than a visual spectacle wasn’t quite maximized. Life was the goal: experiencing the small and quiet always of a moving life, but it’s whisper was too slight for me and the seams of the production of the “natural surroundings” was too readily apparent to me. It felt manufactured more than it felt real, which also helped to bleed some of the emotional authenticity.

The thematic elements of dogs and water are unceasing. The water as a medium for introspection, cleansing, dirtying, destruction and safety. It is ever there, almost to the point of drowning in it. Much like the slavishly kept dogs, feeding off scraps of food or attention, caged but hoping for escape, secondary side elements of life, expected but not nurtured - just like the main character and her ever secondary nature, to her family, her employers, her boyfriend, and ultimately the drama swirling around her (family breaking apart, revolution in the streets, etc). I appreciate the thematic metaphors, but for me, they seemed to lack subtlety or editing.

I did like this film. It was masterfully shot, but somewhat emotionally inert until the 2nd half. I expected it to blow me away but my pants remained firmly on. Definitely worth seeing, but my expectations were hopefully one of revelation and brilliance, which I didn’t achieve. I got the wow wash, but not the masterpiece punch. Really good but I didn’t see a best film of the year at the theater. Maybe I am wrong. Wouldn’t be the first time.