Cuaron's family saga Roma depicts thet passage from innocence to experience

Roma (2018) is another fine work from the Mexican writer/director Alfonso Cuaron, quite a shift from his previous movie, Gravity, and apparently a highly personal and autobiographical work. The movie, set in 1970/71 and shot entirely in b/w (not sure why as by 1970 there were few b/w movies, at least in the U.S., but it looks great throughout) tells of a well-to-do family in Mexico City (apparently in a neighborhood called Roma; I had to look that up - not a great title for this movie I think) with four young children (the oldest maybe about 12?), two servants, and a marriage that's coming apart - a fact that the parents try to keep from the kids, which just increases the tension and uncertainty of their lives. At the center of the story is the teenage servant Cleo, a young woman who seems to be of Mayan descent and is from a remote country village - shy and unsophisticated and the victim of the mother's wrath, wrath that should have been directed toward the faithless husband/provider. Yalitza Aparcio - with no acting experience - is the megastar in this show, as she endures a number of traumas and hardships while doing her best to provide a loving environment for the young children, largely ignored by their parents, while meeting the many demands of keeping this large family clean and clothed and fed. It's a story that could so easily have been mawkish and sentimental, but there's not a wrong or melodramatic note in this film. In particular, there are several tour de force sequences, from the deceptively difficult 360-panning shots that show us the elegant household from Cleo's POV to some terrific crowd sequences - the New Year's Eve forest fire, the riots in the streets of Mexico City, the delivery room in the city hospital - and some quieter and more intense personal moments that dramatize her passage from innocence to experience: Cleo's bus ride, Cleo in the furniture store, Cleo and the children on the beach at Veracruz. This is certainly Cleo's story start to finish, but we also get a sense of the family dynamics; at the end, we feel sorrow and pity for all (except the father), and we're left wishing there were more - which is the best possible way to end a movie, or any narrative.