Alfonso Cuarón, acclaimed Mexican director, has chosen with “Roma” to mix wide framing with a moving intimacy. This film, awarded at the Venice Film Festival and at the Academy Awards, depicts a family from Mexico City in the 70s, highlighting the character of Cleo, the maid played by Yalitza Aparicio. Cuarón’s trick: never placing Cleo at the exact center of the shots, reflecting her marginalized status while also showcasing her new symbolic centrality in the family. This subtle play of panoramic cameras and tracking shots offers a powerful visual reading, where the intimate and the wide resonate with each other without ever merging.

Next, discover how this approach illuminates the narrative, Cleo’s exact role, and her gradual shift towards a central maternal role despite the absence of the father. The film relies on meticulous reconstruction, featuring a stunning Dolby black and white, shot in 65 mm digital. Dive also into the logic of this trip to the sea, which deconstructs and then rearranges the family unit, and how the wide framing intensifies the contained emotion.

In short:

• Wide framing and intimacy: Cuarón captures the family dimension through wide shots that are always focused on Cleo’s displacement.
• The absence of the father: it structures the recomposition of the family core around Cleo and the mother.
• Unique visual technique: Arri Alexa 65 camera in 2.35:1 format under Emmanuel Lubezki’s light, shot in 65 mm.
• Cleo’s role: seemingly marginal, but central to the reconstructed family dynamic.
• Emotional resonance: the trip to Tuxcan, far from idyllic, reveals an emotional and social rearrangement.

Wide framing and displacement: Alfonso Cuarón’s visual signature in Roma

In Roma, the camera never directly fixes Cleo at the center of the image. She is off-center, reflecting her position as a domestic worker, socially marginalized. This photographic choice relies on remarkable staging and pans that pull away and then bring Cleo closer without ever sacrificing depth of field. Emmanuel Lubezki, the director of photography, supports this aesthetic with Dolby black and white, shot in a wide format 2.35:1 with an Arri Alexa 65 at Focus Features.

Here are some key elements of this style:

1. Wide shots that show the complexity of the decor and social relationships.
2. Cleo, always on the edge of the frame, underscores her marginal status.
3. 180-degree camera to convey physical and emotional distance.
4. Smooth tracking shots narrating the physical and symbolic movements of the characters.

This visual setup reinforces the feeling of an unstable family, focused on a moving point, much like the absent father.

The absence of the father and family reorganization around Cleo

Roma evokes more the disappearance than the presence of the father: his absence creates a visible tension in the composition of the shots. The house seems vacant in the center, a void that Cleo, the maid, ultimately fills. For example:

• The horizontal shots show a palpable social distance between Cleo and the rest of the family.
• The separation between the mother, the children, and Cleo is materialized by a wide interval.
• At the seaside, while one might expect a moment of relaxation, it is an emotional and physical void that sets in with the harsh sun and burns.

This visual narration expresses the emotional adaptation, where the maternal figure shifts from the father to Cleo, leading to a true recomposition of the family core.

Shooting and aesthetics: the technical magic of Roma

Roma is shot in 65 mm digital, offering a resolution that allows for a 70 mm print. The Arri Alexa 65 camera thus reveals an exceptional precision of details, supported by Emmanuel Lubezki’s mastery of light. The black and white, favored over a colored filter, provides a timeless rendering, capturing Mexico City of the 70s in its finest grains. The Dolby soundtrack completes the immersion by giving both detail and atmospheric ambiance, enhancing every breath, every silence.

• 2.35:1 format to widen the visual field and capture the urban atmosphere.
• Work of natural light combined with subtle lighting that shapes each shot.
• Filmic praxis where the director is also the director of photography.

The trip to the sea: metaphor of a new family center

The sequence where the family moves to the beach of Tuxcan perfectly illustrates the family recomposition. While at the beginning the frame imposes an old order, marked by the absence of the father and social disparities, the end of the sequence shows Cleo as the new pivot:

1. Cleo, moved to the edge, gradually leads the children and the mother in her wake.
2. The sweeping camera movements testify to this social and familial displacement.
3. An arc of circle forms around Cleo, recomposing a new family, without a father.
4. The setting sun symbolically seals this new unity.

This radical change is a strong message about modern and marginalized families. The paternal paradigm gives way to a multiple and recomposed maternity.

Roma now stands as a significant example of cinema that blends technical innovation, intimate narrative, and social engagement. A film to rediscover, especially thanks to its release on DVD by The Criterion Collection, available on platforms like Netflix.

To deepen the experience and better understand the issues, explore articles on contemporary cinema, the challenges of independent cinema, or the dynamics of nostalgia in cinema.