ROMA - THE FILM CUARON WROTE FOR ME

Roma is the story of a middle class family in Mexico City during the early seventies. A story told through the eyes of Cleo, an indigenous woman who is the maid of the family.

This film is also Cuaron’s most personal one. He dedicates the movie to the maid he grew up with in the suburb of Roma.

I have to admit that when I watched this film for the first time I thought Cuaron took a gamble. I never thought that the idea of an indigenous maid would be easily understood by Europeans, Australians or even most of the non-Spanish speaking portion of the American population. In these present times, when people keep looking for new reasons to be offended, the idea of a young woman living only to work and care about other people for meagre wages could be construed as slavery. I have been more than amazed about how many people (non-Hispanic) have appreciated the movie not only for its visual beauty, but for the intense emotional content.

The movie is shot in black and white to provide a more realistic view of life in the 70’s where Latin American homes didn’t have access to colour TV yet.

The camera follows Cleo (brilliantly played by Yelitza Aparicio) as she walks up and down the stairs of the ample home carrying out a number of chores. She does the laundry, mops the floors, makes the beds, cooks breakfast and even helps the younger kids to dress for school. In one of the most beautiful and memorable takes of the movie, the camera follows her at night when she closes doors, turns off lights and makes sure the kids are in bed. All in a single take. Then, when the house is silent, dark and everyone is in bed, Cleo and her friend (another maid) spend the only few moments they have for themselves after a long day doing some exercises before going to bed.

The family seemingly treats Cleo as a maid, a person from another social circle who is there only to serve. The only one who doesn’t see her in that way is the youngest boy, still too innocent to understand how his society divides people. Throughout the film we see how sometimes she is treated harshly and even unfairly but at the same time you get a sense of the love between Cleo and the whole family.

A crucial moment in the film is when the family goes to the beach and take Cleo with them. At this point in time the father had already left his wife for another woman so it’s only the wife, her mother, Cleo and the kids. As one of the girls is caught by a strong current Cleo runs into the water and barely saves her from drowning. When the girl is carried out of the water the whole family embraces and recognise Cleo as the saviour. It’s a very symbolic moment when she is finally given the place she deserves as part of the family. It looks like Cuaron needed to openly give his former maid the recognition he never gave her while living at home.

What really got me about this movie was the parallelism with my own experience. Cuaron is just a couple of years older than me so while he was growing up in Mexico I was doing the same in Caracas. And in my house we had Bertha, an indigenous woman who left her family behind in a small coastal town to come and live with us. She became my second mother and has been with our family for 48 years or so. She still lives with my mum although she has her own quarters including two bedrooms and a living room where she receives her daughter or sisters from time to time. Her relationship with my mum in her old age is that of a younger sister who looks after her. Like any pair of sisters they argue but love each other deeply. I personally haven’t seen her in 9 years (the time I haven’t set foot in Venezuela) but speak with her frequently.

To me Bertha signifies stability. Whenever I went to my mum’s house for a visit and sat in the kitchen, watching Bertha walk around her workplace, preparing a meal or cleaning dishes, I felt I was home, and that everything was OK. No matter how troubled I was at work or in my personal life, Bertha was always there to make me feel calm with a delicious meal or a flaming hot cup of coffee.

I’ve always felt like I never gave her back even half of the love she gave me. I feel I owe her. Maybe that’s also what Cuaron felt hence his tribute movie. To a lesser degree, my humble tribute to Bertha was including her in my novel “Memoirs of a Good Boy” as the only completely real character, even using her name. God bless my beautiful Bertha.

Another significant aspect of Cleo’s life is the lack of a personal life and her troubled relationships. Her boyfriend gets her pregnant but doesn’t want to know anything about the baby. In a beautifully shot but tense scene she delivers a stillborn baby. Cleo grieves her loss in silence, not expecting compassion from anyone. She wrongly believes her life and tragedies are less important due to her social status. Brilliantly enough, Cuaron decides that the whole family will look after Cleo and finally give her the love and status that she deserves.

There are many other aspects of the movie worth some consideration. Water is a constant element. The movie starts with Cleo hosing down the car park where the family dog spends most of his time. Then there’s the scene where the residents of a farm house the family was visiting were putting out a fire by passing buckets of water from person to person. And finally the beach scene. Water washes imperfections? Cleo emerges from the waters as a saviour? Only Cuaron could answer those questions, I’m only speculating.

Then there are the references to the Italian filmmakers of the 60’s (most notably Fellini). The ninja wannabe boyfriend and the weird training sessions of his made up army in the middle of nowhere. The man in a (bear?) disguise singing a song in German while the fire is being put out.  Surrealistic images which give more texture to the movie.

And there’s the small detail of Yelitza Aparicio’s performance as Cleo. She was so good in her role that it’s hard to picture her as anything but Cloe. I don’t want to see her in another role. I want her to remain Cloe for me forever.

Given the social and historic similarities between my childhood and Cuaron’s as well as the almost identical profiles of Cleo and Bertha this movie touched me emotionally more than any other I’ve ever seen. I feel like Cuaron wrote this for me.

Thanks Alfonso, on behalf of the Jahn family including Bertha.

This is at least my opinion. And I might be wrong.

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE OF EBBING MISSOURI - A TALE OF ANGER AND REDEMPTION

Warning: May contain spoilers

The first part of this article summarises the film, and in the second part I deliver my thoughts and comments (In case you don’t need or want to read the story)

a. Summary

This film tells the story of a distraught mother mourning her teenage daughter, who was savagely raped and murdered in the town of Ebbing, Missouri. A year has passed after the crime and the local police have yet to come up with a suspect or any clues at all as to why this horrible crime happened.

Mildred Haze, brilliantly played by Frances McDormand, decides to spend her last five thousand dollars to install three billboards along the road near her house. These signs read: “Raped While Dying”; “And Still No Arrests?”; “How Come Chief Willoughby?” and can be seen by everyone entering the small town.

These signs generate a lot of distress and hatred towards Mildred. Chief Willoughby, played by Woody Harrelson, is a well-liked official who is revered by his colleagues and respected by everyone. His second in command, a racist Officer Dixon, is played brilliantly by the usually underrated Sam Rockwell. Dixon is not only openly racist and possibly homophobic but also stupid, bordering on retarded.

Dixon, a loyal lieutenant to Chief Willoughby, tries to bully Mildred into removing the signs and even sends her best friend, an African American lady named Denis, to prison for possession of marihuana. The town’s priest pays Mildred a visit invited by her son Robbie (Lucas Hedges of Manchester by the Sea’s fame) who tries to convince her to take the signs down. Mildred kicks the priest out of the house after implying that he’s an altar boy molester. It becomes clear that Mildred won’t stop at anything including authorities, the church or even the abuse his son is a victim of at school to keep the signs up and the pressure for her daughter’s killers to be captured.

Chief Willoughby pays Mildred a visit and tries to convince her that he’s doing everything he can, and probably is, to catch the killer. He doesn’t threaten Mildred, but it is revealed then that he’s dying of pancreatic cancer, something that Mildred doesn’t care for.

Once every character is well established and we get to know them, or at least what the Director wants us to know about them, things start getting out of hand. Mildred goes to the dentist to have a tooth removed and when she realizes the doctor is going to try to inflict pain on her she grabs the drill and puts a hole through the doctor’s thumbnail. The Chief confronts her and she denies the doctor’s story saying “it’s his word against mine”.

Chief Willoughby shoots himself and leaves a suicide note clearing Mildred of having any influence in his decision. He justifies his actions by writing he didn’t want the suffering of the few last months he had to live and didn’t want his wife and daughters to see him become a shadow of himself.

Officer Dixon goes crazy and gives the guy who owns the billboards a beating, throwing him out a first floor window leaving him badly injured. This is witnessed by the new Chief of Police who has just arrived in town and is dismissed from the police force. Dixon goes on and sets the billboards on fire during the night. Mildred retaliates by setting the Police Station on fire. Dixon was there at night by chance and gets badly burned, just saving his life by the actions of the town’s midget (played by a great Peter Dinklage, who else?)

James, the midget, notices Mildred and realises she’s the one who started the fire but when the Chief of Police asks them what happened James says he and Mildred were together and noticed the fire, promptly attending to Dixon and saving him. He gives Mildred an alibi and it appears she’s out of trouble.

Inspired by a letter that Chief Willoughby left him, Dixon, who is now seriously disfigured with burn marks, seems to want to change his ways. He overhears a stranger in a bar telling a friend about how he enjoyed raping a girl and starts a fight scratching the guy’s face. He gets badly beaten up but with the flesh from the guy’s face sends a sample for DNA testing (the DNA found on the girl’s body wasn’t a match to any known criminals) in the hope to find a match to the killers DNA.

Dixon tells a surprised Mildred about what he did and she thanks him. Unfortunately the DNA isn’t a match but he finds the guy’s address in Idaho.

He tells Mildred the bad news but asks her to go to Idaho to kill this guy as he’s guilty of rape anyway. These two very different characters set off on a road trip with sandwiches and shotguns and along the way they ask each other whether they really wanted to kill this man. We are left with the question of what happened next

b. My take on the film.

This was a pleasantly surprising film. The story is unconventional and brilliantly written by Martin McDonagh, who also directed it.

Like many new authors, McDonagh provides a script full of comedy which is odd given the tragedies unfolding all around Ebbing. It reminded me of Fargo and in some degree of Manchester by the Sea.

Several times there are references to racism. “So how’s it all going in the nigger torturing business Dixon?” was blurted by Mildred. This nigger torturing line was mentioned a few times and the self-appointed moralists of America have blasted the film for this which I found absurd. It’s clearly not the Director’s intention to offend but to rather denounce these practices. In fact the three African American characters are portrayed as decent and hardworking citizens.

The performances are brilliant. McDormand delivers a powerful Mildred, a woman who won’t stop at anything to drive her cause. She drills the dentist’s thumbnail, verbally abuses Dixon every chance she’s got, calling him “fuckhead” in front of his fellow officers and slams the priest with a monologue for the ages.

The best role belongs to Sam Rockwell as Dixon. He manages to get the audience to hate him and then slowly turn around to like him when he decides to do the right thing for Mildred. A racist, violent and almost retarded grown man living with his mother who totally controls him.

This movie is totally character driven. And the main two are extremely powerful and masterfully written. Mildred Haze is one for the ages. The best female character I’ve seen probably since Nurse Ratched, and the lines written for her were just brilliant. The speech she gives the priest when she accuses him of abusing altar boys is simply perfect. The Officer Dixon character is even better. Sam Rockwell delivers Dixon with all his violence, racism, arrogance and stupidity guided by some brilliant script writing. He reminded me of the Wild Bill he played in Green Mile some twenty years ago. The midget was a fantastic touch and Peter Dinklage was great in this part.

This is a movie which I describe as a tale of anger and redemption. Anger because everyone in Ebbing is enraged for the horrible crime that was committed. Enraged at Mildred for blaming good old Chief Willoughby for the failure to provide a culprit. This rage overflows and catches poor Robbie who’s bullied at school; Dixon for the loss of his boss whom he idolised; the Chief’s wife for losing him; Robbie himself for having to be reminded every day of the horrible crime that took his sister. And of course Mildred, who unleashes her anger at everyone, including herself.

Officer Dixon seeks redemption by trying to catch the killer and to do so he gets badly beaten in a bar with the sole objective of collecting DNA. Even though he knows he got disfigured and almost died from the fire started by Mildred, he forgives her for this. He also seeks redemption and apologises to the billboard guy while they share a hospital room.

But the ultimate redemption for Dixon, and for that matter for Mildred, lies in their last adventure, their hunting trip to Idaho in search for the rapist. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t involved in her daughter’s murder. He had to pay. Someone had to pay. The anger needs to be unleashed and the cycle of hatred must be closed. Did they do it in the end? I think they did.

But that’s only my opinion. And I might be wrong.

MANCHESTER BY THE SEA - THE ART OF SHOW AND NOT TELL

Movies have different effects on different people. No matter what the flick is about you’ll encounter those who loved it, hated it or simply dismissed it. And it happens with every movie. Not even so called greats like The Godfather or Citizen Kane escape criticism.

Enter “Manchester by the Sea”. This drama set in a small New England town is filled with emotions that appeal to every viewer. I mean, family deaths, especially children, will have an effect on people. This is not even up for discussion, but a cold hard fact. The trick is how to deliver the message, how to tell the story and how to portray a grieving father and a broken family.

The story begins (an ends) with Lee Chandler (played by Casey Affleck), a lonely and reserved janitor living in a small basement apartment in Boston. From the start it becomes evident that Chandler has personality issues and avoids human contact. A loner and even an asshole who doesn’t hesitate in getting into a bar fight or speak his mind to customers. Then he receives a call telling him his older brother Joe has passed away in Manchester, a small town just outside Boston, a town where he grew up. In flashbacks, we’re told of the heart disease Joe suffered and that his death was imminent. Director Kenneth Lonergan also throws a few more flashbacks depicting the close relationship Lee had with Joe and his son and also of Joe’s drug and alcohol addicted wife.

When Lee goes to the solicitor’s house for the reading of Joe’s will, he’s told that Joe’s wish was for him to be the guardian of his underage son Patrick (Lucas Hedges). This decision, which seemed logical after we were shown how close Lee was with his brother and nephew, deeply shakes Lee. While he’s letting this sink in, memories of his past life and the fire that killed his three young children and ended his marriage are brought up in yet another flashback. In the span of three minutes many things click into place. Lee’s life was destroyed and the reason he left Manchester was to escape the demons of his past. His rude, distant and aggressive behaviour starts to make sense and so are his reasons for not wanting to commit to take care of his nephew, no matter how much he loves him.

In my view Kenneth Lonergan carefully manipulated the story telling in order to drop the right bits of information (an emotion) at the right times. To some viewers the pace of the film may seem slow, but I think this was done intentionally. Can you describe or explain the grief a human being goes through after such a tragedy in one scene, one page in a script? Not at all. Lonergan wanted us to follow Lee Chandler’ movements and build up his personality before dropping the bomb midway through the movie in a superb exercise of show and not tell.

One of the most powerful scenes takes place when Lee runs into his ex-wife Randi (Michelle Williams) who’s already re married and with a son. She wants to re establish a relationship with Lee and tells him she still loves him. Lee rejects her out of fear, of having to re live what they went through years before. A very dramatic two minutes of dialogue between tears masterfully crafted by two great actors.

The ending of the movie couldn’t have been more realistic. No lovey dovey hugging between Lee and Patrick. Just a commitment where Patrick stays in Manchester and is adopted by the family’s best friend and Lee stays in Boston, unable to live in Manchester anymore. The relationship between both remaining strong but at a distance.

In saying this, I would have ended the movie when Lee and Patrick were walking back home from the cemetery, tossing a rubber ball to one another. No words, no telling. No need to explain anything else.

The one thing that struck me as odd (and it doesn’t mean it was incorrect) was the laid back attitude of Patrick towards his father’s recent passing. He was enjoying his teenage freedom with girls and rock’n roll too much to stop doing so because of his father’s death. A brief crisis with frozen chicken woke him up briefly but that seemed to be the extent of his grief. I don’t know, everyone reacts to life events differently, maybe this was his way of coping.

In the end, the movie moved me left front and centre. Affleck couldn’t have delivered a more perfect performance and Lonergan’s story telling was no less than brilliant. Michelle William’s brief stint was worthy of an award. A powerful piece of film making which I’m anxious to see again. I don’t rate movies, but if I had to I’d give this one 8.5 out of 10.

At least that’s my opinion. And I might be wrong.