SHERDOG MOVIE CLUB: Week 141 - Roma

[Tufts]

The drowning scene was interesting. It was inevitable it was going to happen from the moment the mother relented and told the kids they could get in the water, as long as they stayed at the shore. This scene was clearly foreshadowed earlier when we saw the same two kids playing in the rain in their outdoor hallway and Cleo had to go out in the rain to make them come in when they ignored her pleas to get out of the rain.

FOR THOSE OF YOU WITH YOUNG KIDS PLEASE READ THIS: Those kids were under water long enough that they should have gone to the hospital because they were at risk of secondary drowning, which happens when there is water in your lungs that triggers pulmonary edema. It can kill you and symptoms might not present for 24 hours. A lot of people don't know about this, it doesn't happen that often, but it happens so I always share this information when the opportunity arises:

https://familydoctor.org/secondary-drowning/

 

[Tufts]

I liked this movie. It was slow, but well made. My attention span in Spanish is always better than in English. There were some issues, but I do appreciate a movie presented from the perspective of a voice that is usually silenced, even though that voice is filtered through the eyes of someone with privilege. I thought Cleo did a tremendous job in her role. I loved the cinematography and appreciated the slow build.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

… If the movie was intended to simulate the boredom and frustration of her situation, then it succeeded. The first hour and fifteen minutes was like Apocalypse Now, but with a maid in Mexico instead of the soldiers in the Vietnam war... Ok, maybe not that slow and miserable, but It was really fucking slow.

The opening shot was fantastic. With the sky reflecting in the puddles of water, symbolizing her desire to fly free. It sounded like buckets being emptied, I was wondering why she had so many buckets to empty ha, but it turned out to be a hose, weird.

Nice house, love the railings on the stairs. The family are a bunch of lazy slobs and the maid never stops, from day to night. She seemed to work a lot harder than the other maid.

I knew what to expect before I even started watching. There's no way it was going to be fun. The life of a full time maid must be pretty miserable, and awkward. She seemed to get by on the love and affection of the young ones, and the companionship of her fellow maid. It must've been that much more miserable for her after the kids all grew up and had no need for her, beyond servant duties. It's pretty tragic, and you know her story is far from unique. They don't even let her keep the lights on after they go to sleep. That's an 16 hour workday basically, and she didn't stop the whole time. She even dresses the spoiled brats. The kids are so lazy one of them thinks he doesn't have to share the candy with his sister, it's all his because he made the effort of putting it in the freezer. Damn, that's lazy. This was long before the digital age when that kind of laziness was very uncommon.

I kept hoping it would take a wild tales styled twist and she'd started poisoning them all, or shoot the dude that knocked her up and threatened her, but I knew the kid survived to write the story so...

There was always dogshit in the garage? Why? The same reason the dogs were constantly barking, and the kids constantly yelling. People want to be free and do what they want. The dog barking, and waiting at the door, and shitting all over the house symbolizes our desire to escape (and shit all over) our mundane existence, especially for Cleo, and later the mom too.

The garages and roads in Spain were really narrow like that too. When I was there I stayed in a big Villa with a bunch of family (went for a wedding) and it was similar to that. The laundry was on the roof top too with a shitty steel stairway climbing up to the 5th story rooftop, similar to the end of this movie. The maids had their own entrance to the kitchen too so they could make breakfast without waking anyone up. The maids quarters were like a mini-shantytown attached to a sprawling villa. Much like in Mexico City there's no grass, so the animals shit and piss on concrete streets. They have city crews that scrub and wash down the streets and sidewalks weekly so it's really clean there. I've never seen them washing the sidewalks in Toronto, they stink.

Besides simulating the misery of a maids life, this movie also gets into the issue of classism, a little bit. It was interesting when the kid told the story of the other boy being killed for throwing a water balloon at a soldiers jeep. The maid was the only one bothered by it. The family didn't fear the army or empathize with the citizenry the way the maid did.

Cleo was one strong woman, It's amazing that she could keep it all together with everything going on. If I was her I would've went postal for sure, lol.

The protest/riot scene was absolutely amazing. Protests in movies always look so fake and ridiculous, with small crowds. That shot must've taken some planning, just wow. Technically speaking, apart from the slow pace and minimal story that's predictable everything is good, or great. It feels real, and Cleo does a great job imo. It's just too slow and miserable for my tastes.

It reminded me a bit of 'The Assassination of Richard Nixon" for the first bit, however both characters deal with their frustrations in vastly different ways.

I don't know. It's effective and well made, and for some I can see why they'd love it. But it was too slow and frustrating for me. The moral of the story is one I already understand all to well, in Capitalist society we're only as valuable as the work we provide, and if you're unlucky enough to be "unskilled" like Cleo, than the world is a cold dark place waiting to take advantage of you (laziness isn't always the issue, like capitalist ideology would have us believe). In Capitalist dog-eat-dog society many dogs (like Cleo) exist only to be eaten (worked to death), On paper I actually much prefer communist "we're a team" ideology, but in practice both systems are run by crooks so we're fucked anyways. I like movies that help me forget this lol, or at least have some escapist fantasy elements like poisoning loan sharks, or fucking on top of your smashed wedding cake (which symbolizes your smashed dreams).

Oh yeah, worst vacation ever!! Invite the maid who just had a stillborn, then tell the kids dads not coming back and he's been avoiding you all for months. That'll help her relax. And the kids ain't having fun after that news.

I bet the bigshot film director still has a maid... probably not a live in one though.

To sum it all up, that poor woman. She was terrified she'd be fired for getting pregnant, she was truly a slave at heart. She couldn't stay in her village either, the government forced them off their land. She was from Oxaca they said, which border Chiapas. Their farmland was dusted with pesticides and the natives were forced into the cities to support the economy... by being servants for the rich, in exchange for room and board... what a stupid world we live in.​

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

So... why is this movie called Roma? @Tufts, help! Heeelp!

Rome was the first great empire. Slaves were brought in to serve the rich. That's my guess

Oh c'mon. How is that adorable? It's ghastly. That you think so little of a creature that you see no problem with mounting it's decapitated head on a wall as a trinket, a mere ornament of your house.

I'm surprised those people didn't stuff and mount their servants' heads, to be honest.

I wanted to like this film, and I wanted to hate it. I hated this film, and, at times, I liked it. I'm very conflicted about this work. I think part of it was that, being an American, I'm not invested emotionally with the political turmoil of 1970's Mexico. On the other hand, I understand the nature of broken relationships and the human condition. Any good story telling must invest the reader or viewer in what is happening and in some cases this film did, and in others it was just unbearably long. At times this felt like a 37 minute short, expanded to two and a half hours.

The cinematography felt good, it felt well thought out and arranged but there is only so much patience a viewer has when they spend the first half hour watching the maid perform cleaning duties. The highlight of the first 45 minutes of the film was Fermin practicing martial arts with a shower rod, completely nude. I was transfixed by his flying penis. It kinda pisses me off. I don't think women react the same way to seeing other nude women like men react to full on unit exposure. Then it occurred to me, that his staff, was his weapon.

After that, stuff happened for, I dunno, for three or four hours, and we get to the premature baby birth of Cleo in which we see her taken from the car, to the hallways of the hospital, to the elevator, to the triage area, and then into emergency surgery. Everything seems like its happening now very rapidly compared to the 47 scenes that led up to this moment. This is a moment in the film when I felt invested in Cleo and I wanted that baby to breath. I believed that baby was going to breath.

I felt there was a nice juxtaposition when the mom took the kids and Cleo to the beach and then told the kids that their father wasn't coming home. As the kids are slumped over eating ice cream to ease the pain of their familial defeat, a wedding is taking place in the background. One family ending as another begins. Birth and death, birth and death. We have that bit of drama near the end where Sofi and Paco are going to drown in the ocean and Cleo, who can't swim, saves them. Soaked in grief, she confesses that she didn't want her daughter to be born but at the same time, we see that she is a part of an extended family that itself was broken by the father and is reforming as something new.

That damn plane confused me. We see it when these guys are training martial arts.

Super fly Stuca does his pose and we see the plane fly through his arms.

And we see it at a political rally.

and here...

Then at the end of the film as Cleo climbs the stairs we see the plane again. Damn you Roma plane that I can't understand, damn you to hell.

Flying always represents freedom, or getting away. Fly free like a bird. Cleo dreamed of a new, better life. Even chickens try to fly, and they watch the birds that can.

100% agree this would've made a great tragic emotional short. But it was way too long to keep the viewer from losing interest.

I felt there was also the repeated idea of birth and rebirth, or birth and death. A few examples follow.

1. When they were at the party celebrating New Year's eve, it was the birth of a new year, and the death was the forest catching on fire.

2. When Cleo was shopping for a crib it was for the birth of her baby, the death in that scene was a shooting victim.

3. The dog heads on the wall even implies that once one dies, you get another.

4. When the mom takes the kids and Cleo to the beach she confesses in the restaurant that "dad isn't coming back home", which is the death of their marriage/family, then Cleo saves the kids from drowning in the ocean and herself becomes a part of the extended family. So we get a dual birth/death here because its the death of the marriage, but the birth of the new family unit, including Cleo, but also Cleo confesses she didn't want the baby, which died, just after saving the kids from drowning to give them another chance at life. During this particular sequence we also get a very awesome shot of the kids sadly eating ice-cream after they found out their parents are being divorced while in the background of the scene a wedding is taking place. Fuck, wish I could find a pic of that.

5. Lastly, I think there is also some birth/rebirth, birth/death messages to do with the political climate of the time but I don't know what was going on in Mexico in the 1970's well enough to point it out. Obviously, one such example was the protestors (a new beginning or change) and the ones paid to kill them.

If I'm understanding the charge correctly, then I'd say that it's misguided. He wasn't commenting on anything, so there's nothing that he missed or was unaware of in so commenting...because there was no comment. As my post indicates, that's a charge that's perhaps debatable but at least valid on its face (and I obviously think that it's 100% valid and a legitimate complaint to be leveled at the dull and pointless film). To say that there was a lack of self-awareness in the film, though, would seem to be an indicator of a political bias, i.e. because he didn't offer a commentary on subjugation/privilege/insert buzzword he's therefore unaware; it couldn't possibly be that he had different interests/intentions in making the film...

I think it was basically a tribute to the maid, maybe a way for the director to alleviate the guilt of being a brat to her during his childhood, no kid is going to understand the true nature of Cleo's situation. Or this movie could potentially open/change the mind of a racist, the "Mexicans are lazy" type of person. But someone like that would never watch it. I look at it basically like a chick flick. Just there to make us feel empathy with others, to remind us that our first world problems aren't that bad, and that maybe we shouldn't hate on poor Mexicans that want to come to America so much. Some of them are saints that are just born without a chance. Either way, the point could've been indicated in a much shorter time span. But that can also be said of Apocalypse Now

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

"Alfonso Cuarón decided to shoot on location in Mexico City instead of using a soundstage. This is one reason for the several appearances of airplanes, because according to Cuarón they had a plane passing by every five minutes."

As someone who lives right under an aeroplane-route, I sympathize.

"One reason"

Chickens really do try to fly when they see other big birds fly by in the sky.

To reiterate my position, I'm just saying that she was "aiming" for solidarity. Not that she actually succeeded or that said spur came from a worthwhile place. The fact that mom says "us women" gives the impression that Sofia wants to be inclusive with Cleo at this moment. The problem is just that Sofia does it in such a tone-deaf, blind, egotistical and drunken manner that it utterly fails to be a moment of solidarity and just becomes another instance of -- as you say -- Sofia unloading her shit onto Cleo. The ego-intention is solidarity but the function is shit.

I saw it that way too. She didn't complain about all the shit everywhere that time either. And I counted at least 4 piles in that scene. That was after she bought the new car. She was slowly starting to realize that she was unfair to Cleo, mostly because she had no one else to share her feelings with at the time. I also think it was a selfish act. She invited Cleo on vacation but still left her at the beach to attend the kids, even though she can't swim. Cleo wasn't brought along as a friend, imo. The mom was useless without Cleo, she needed her.

She got to "open up" because she and the children had just gone through the trauma of a near-death experience. If there needs to be a near-death experience to open up or receive affection from the family, then that indicates a pretty fucked-up situation.

Exactly. She was having a great time doing stretches alone with the other maid, by candlelight. She never laughed or smiled like that in any other part of the movie. Even when she was with that army dick, because she didn't fully trust him, or was nervous around him still.

Thinking about it, I kind of hate that about this movie. Cleo's climactic rapprochement with the family is due to a completely accidental situation where she saves their lives. She suffers, and suffers, and suffers -- while the family learns nothing systematic about the predicament of her situation, and then because of a complete accident that has nothing to do with the family coming to know or understand her as a person, they learn to love her (while still not knowing her).

If your major turning point can be boiled down to something completely accidental, then that speaks badly about it. Maybe that was the point Alfonso wanted to make, they learn nothing but still love her. But if that was the message he wanted to send, then he should have made their love much more bittersweet and problematic -- instead of the happy-looking ending that we get. Because, again, this indicates a pretty fucked-up situation.

As I mentioned, this seems like the good suffering little Christian archetype from Victorian fiction who gets a redemption because of her suffering without actually changing anything systemic about the situation.

God, talking about this movie makes me want to kick a chair or something. I hope @BeardotheWeirdo is going to be as angry as I am over all of this

I just didn't get that connection period. I'd hug any random stranger that saved my family from drowning and tell them I love them. I didn't see it as a great bonding moment. I think your earlier assessment hit the nail on the head, she was just emotional from the near-death experience (her too since she can't swim) and from her recent pregnancy and relationship issues. It was the moment where she hit rock bottom and then crawled back up and regained her strength. The emotional outbreak was her releasing all that negative energy. Then she went back to being a rock.

The movie ends with her climbing that long, steep, precarious, staircase which stands in stark contrast to the beautifully designed artistic stairway in the house. She was still just the maid, they didn't move the laundry machine to the main floor, where it might get in their way or take space from their items. They didn't really love or care about her.

Cuaron, who lives in Italy, views his childhood with longing and nostalgia even as he acknowledges how sheltered and even exploitative it was. Roma is his $15 million attempt to grapple with those ambiguous feelings. "Memory can only be approached from my standpoint as an adult," he explains. "It's sometimes misguided. All of that is going to taint the whole thing." A compact man with a fashionably disheveled mop of gray hair and an intense gaze, Cuaron doesn't shy away from the pain this process has sometimes occasioned. "I wanted to visit old wounds and come to terms with who I am," he says while meandering along Calle Tepeji, the quiet, tree-lined lane where he grew up and where he filmed certain exterior shots used in the film. "I wanted to explore the wounds that shape me, both personal and wounds that I share collectively with a country and with the world."

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/f...on-revisits-mexicos-turbulent-history-1176330

"I wanted to visit old wounds and come to term with who I am"

I don't even know which character in the story he is.

It was a story about the maid... I'm kind of confused by this.

I feel like it was his tribute to the maid, now that he's old enough to understand what a strong woman she was. I see little value to the story or characters beyond that.

It's also kind of like an excuse, "hey look at my mom, don't blame me for having issues"

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Saw no point in this movie. Don't know or care what it was hoping to convey.

Mad props though for making me lol at a scene where some guy is hopping around with his dork flopping about.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

The mother took her for granted but I think at the end, finally realized how much she needed Cleo. The kids always openly loved her....but the love came from a place of privilege. When they arrive home at the end, the kids go upstairs and exclaim over the changes while Cleo brings in the luggage. As soon as Cleo goes upstairs, they tell her they love her and immediately ask her to make them banana milkshakes. Her love is recognized while her place in the family is reinforced.

They love her as a servant. If you love something set it free, if it comes back it's meant to be.

The mother also didn't love her, she just loved not having to raise her kids, because Cleo was doing it for her. Imo.

It is disturbing to me how Cleo is portrayed as a cheerful, hard working woman, happy and grateful with her lot in life until she sullies herself when she got pregnant. It is the pregnancy, not the hard work, or the long hours, or the abuse from Sofia that make Cleo become quiet and unhappy. It is acknowledging that she didn't want the baby that becomes her redemption. Loosing the baby also feels like a judgy punishment for not wanting to be a mother. But who would in her position? At one point Adela brings up the fact that the army had taken away Cleo's mother's land in the village. Cleo asked What can I do? and Adela said You could visit her and Cleo says Like this indicating her pregnancy that her mother must not know about. There is minimal emotional reaction to the loss of land. There is acceptance that this is how the world works, just like there is acceptance that she must work from dawn until bedtime every single day. Cleo is happy at the end because she confesses her sin of not wanting the baby, and she is able to happily go back to how things were before she messed up. To me this is the idealized telling of a romanticized life from the eyes of a little boy who is not able to understand what Cleo's life was really like.

I think Cleo's misery was due to her first and only love treating her like garbage, taking her virginity and leaving. She didn't seem bothered by the pregnancy until he bailed. He was the only ray of hope in her life, and he used her then left the second it got serious. Her heart was broken, and her faith in mankind took a huge hit. Her mom and her village were being destroyed, she had nothing but work left. She probably dreamed of the martial arts dude saving her from her nightmare. She even travelled out to some field in the middle of nowhere to desperately try and get him to come back. What was her plan? He wasn't going to move in with them. He was her ticket to freedom. In that era, society, and considering her background, would she find another man to marry her, a deflowered maid with a son?

Cleo was clearly devastated when her baby was stillborn, but she told the family she was happy the baby died... to me this says a lot. She really wasn't happy her baby died, but when she said it, as a pledge of allegiance to the family. Raising those kids was what gave her life meaning, she risked her own life to save them. She needed those kids as much as they needed her.

 

[Yotsuya]

For me the final scene was very powerful and it took me several days to process it. Cloe climbs up the stairs to do the laundry while the family spends time together and we see the distance between them. We don’t really know what Cloe thinks or feels about it. Is she crying up there or is she content? Cuarón makes no claims about it. He admits, that he has no grasp what it feels like to be Cleo, but he wants the best for her. It’s open skies now and not seeing the world only as reflection in a puddle like in opening scene. That’s best you can do for someone who’s fate you had no power over when you were just a kid.

I find it very unfair that Cuarón gets called out for his priviledged point of view, while he’s very honest about his nostalgia and shows as much empathy as he can while trying to keep the movie realistic. It’s a crazy balancing act and I think Cuarón nailed it very well.

 

[Yotsuya]

I don't even know which character in the story he is.

Pretty obviously the youngest kid, who had weird dreams about his previous lives as a combat pilot or a sailor and who wanted to see Marooned and walked around in astronaut suit at new years eve party (Gravity references). They played dead with Cloe at the roof and I think Cloe said to her roommate, that she was very fond of him.

 

[Yotsuya]

I agree that the family stepped up and helped Cleo. But they did it with no heart. Pregnancy really messes with women. It can be a very scary time. She got what she needed on paper but I would argue they could have done more to support her emotionally. And I was really frustrated with the scene with the doctor. The doctor spoke down to her and asked her rude and intrusive questions about her sex life. This still happens to women, and I would guess it always happened to single pregnant women in the 70s in Mexico. That doesn't make her treatment by the doctor any less cold though. The only person who was kind to her was the male doctor at the hospital when they were in the elevator as she was going up to surgery. And even he seemed to do it so that he could feel good about himself, as in Oh look how kind I am to the pregnant indigenous lass but oh no, I can't stick around, I have an appointment but I sure feel good about the kindness I already showed her. During the birth, the doctors told Cleo what they were doing to her, but at no point did they update her about the baby. There was absolutely nothing done in this scene to ensure she was emotionally ok. It was the most brutal part of the movie to me and was the scene that spoke the loudest as to how she was looked down upon by white society.

I think some of that has a lot to do about kind of economy of story telling (you don’t show everything) or keeping kind of some cards hidden and most of all keeping the movie realistic within that period and not idealizing the story too much. Roma is complex art, not simplified crusade.

 

[BeardotheWeirdo]

Pretty obviously the youngest kid, who had weird dreams about his previous lives as a combat pilot or a sailor and who wanted to see Marooned and walked around in astronaut suit at new years eve party (Gravity references). They played dead with Cloe at the roof and I think Cloe said to her roommate, that she was very fond of him.

OK. They all seemed like background characters to me.

She was fond of the youngest two, you could tell.

But as they aged they surely would've grown apart.

For me the final scene was very powerful and it took me several days to process it. Cloe climbs up the stairs to do the laundry while the family spends time together and we see the distance between them. We don’t really know what Cloe thinks or feels about it. Is she crying up there or is she content? Cuarón makes no claims about it. He admits, that he has no grasp what it feels like to be Cleo, but he wants the best for her. It’s open skies now and not seeing the world only as reflection in a puddle like in opening scene. That’s best you can do for someone who’s fate you had no power over when you were just a kid.

I find it very unfair that Cuarón gets called out for his priviledged point of view, while he’s very honest about his nostalgia and shows as much empathy as he can while trying to keep the movie realistic. It’s a crazy balancing act and I think Cuarón nailed it very well.

She looked like she was struggling to carry them, that said it all for me. But you're right, only she knows how she felt. Cuaron, and all of us, are just assuming.

He did effectively, and fairly tell the story in my eyes. It was just way too slow for my tastes, even though the pace did help to bring us into her tedious, repetitive world.

He was as honest as he could be, I don't really doubt that. But did he really have enough info to make a movie out of it. Some more dialogue between her and her other maid room-mate would've went along way, but Cuaron didn't want to guess her feelings. That's understandable, but it left a lot to be desired also, imo.

If he was closer to her, he might've asked her as he matured. They didn't say what happened to her

 

[Yotsuya]

OK. They all seemed like background characters to me.

She was fond of the youngest two, you could tell.

But as they aged they surely would've grown apart.



She looked like she was struggling to carry them, that said it all for me. But you're right, only she knows how she felt. Cuaron, and all of us, are just assuming.

He did effectively, and fairly tell the story in my eyes. It was just way too slow for my tastes, even though the pace did help to bring us into her tedious, repetitive world.

He was as honest as he could be, I don't really doubt that. But did he really have enough info to make a movie out of it. Some more dialogue between her and her other maid room-mate would've went along way, but Cuaron didn't want to guess her feelings. That's understandable, but it left a lot to be desired also, imo.

If he was closer to her, he might've asked her as she matured. They didn't say what happened to her

Even if most stuff in Roma is based on Cuarón’s memories, the movie is not about his real life nanny, but a tribute to her. Roma is about a fictional character called Cloe. Cuarón’s own alter ego is kept very much on the sidelines for a good purpose. It’s not his story.

Roma is not a talkative tv-drama, but a very cinematic movie and most of the nuances are found in moods and small cues in the little dialogue there was. I enjoyed that a great deal, but I understand it’s not something you’d expect from a Netflix release and that a lot can be lost, if the pace does not grip you.

 

[Tufts]

Cleo was clearly devastated when her baby was stillborn, but she told the family she was happy the baby died... to me this says a lot. She really wasn't happy her baby died, but when she said it, as a pledge of allegiance to the family.

I didn't take it this way. I think she was realistic about the life she could provide her baby and also practical about how much harder it would make her own life, as she would be expected to continue doing everything she was already doing while managing her own child. I think she was frightened of all of the forthcoming changes, surprised about the sadness and loss she felt when the baby was born stillborn, yet possibly still slightly relieved, which would have absolutely triggered terrible guilt. Her life was simpler without the baby. She had already accepted the role she was playing in the family, and in the end preferred not to have to deal with that much change. At least she knew these kids would always have what they needed. It would have been brutal raising a baby knowing all the privileges that would have been denied her.

 

[Tufts]

They love her as a servant. If you love something set it free, if it comes back it's meant to be.

I think kids are more generous with their love. I think the love of the kids in the movie was genuine. There are so many tender scenes between them. I have also known so many people who loved their nanny or Ayah more than their parents. I think the mother needed Cleo, appreciated her, felt affection and responsibility towards her but never forgot that she worked for the family.

 

[Tufts]

I find it very unfair that Cuarón gets called out for his priviledged point of view, while he’s very honest about his nostalgia and shows as much empathy as he can while trying to keep the movie realistic. It’s a crazy balancing act and I think Cuarón nailed it very well

I think he did a good job too. I just never forget that her role is filtered through his experience. Which is perhaps why the ending is left so open. The scene right before is where the kids tell her they love her and ask for a milkshake, showing nothing has changed. Everyone goes back to their roles.

 

[MusterX]

"Alfonso Cuarón decided to shoot on location in Mexico City instead of using a soundstage. This is one reason for the several appearances of airplanes, because according to Cuarón they had a plane passing by every five minutes."

I want to kick his ass because he put the damn plane on the cover art for the film. He actually took the time to focus in on the plane for the final scene of the film. The plane passed gloriously through the arms of the martial arts trainer.

You understand what I'm saying? The plane wasn't just some distant item caught on film, it was framed, perfectly at times, and focused on as a part of the film. So for him to say oh it has no meaning, I want to hurt him.

 

[MusterX]

Yep. He certainly turned out a be a real POS. Especially in the final scene where he threatened her. Made me mad, since he said he was a martial artist. Clearly he didn't truly understand what that should mean. One of my favorite scenes was his naked staff work though. That was impressive and unexpected. I was particularly entertained when he did his little jump. Talk about confidence and composure. I have clearly not seen enough men in my life practicing their forms naked!

 

[MusterX]

Me too. I only skimmed over comments before watching to gauge responses but also to try and avoid spoilers, as this was the only film I nominated that I haven't seen, and someone commented they were happy they did not watch it with their pregnant wife. This made me totally nervous. Plus there were several scenes that foreshadowed the outcome including the earthquakes while she was looking at the babies, and then when the drink got spilled on Cleo when they were drinking to the health of the baby. I did think that now in US hospitals, you would't just be able to walk up to the newborn ward to look at babies through a window.

I've never been to a hospital that wasn't like that. You walk up to the window, you look in, and you see about 20 babies. It may not be the type of window you are thinking of though. You aren't going to break through this window and grab a baby if that's what you think. Its thick, you couldn't shoot a bullet through it. If I gave you a chair and 10 minutes you wouldn't be able to break through it.

 

[MusterX]

This movie took place during the Dirty War in Mexico. The government was being controlled by the US backed PRI party. They were repressive and violent and an estimated 3000 people disappeared during the 70s at the hands of the government. There are a lot of studies out there that show how repressive and abusive this regime was. We see the military presence throughout the movie. One thing I was not sure about was what was going on in this scene. It looked like a protest where the military attacked the crowd. I wasn't sure why Fermín was involved. He wasn't military, yet he was part of the group that came in and shot the civilians protestors who were fleeing. I'll have to look into this.

This answers some of my questions, specifically that I outlined in post #12 and the political climate of the 70's in Mexico.

 

[MusterX]

I didn't think there was any chance of it. Too many bad omens

The bad omens part of it didn't occur to me until I had watched the entire film and then figured out there was a theme of birth and death throughout the film. I should have definitely picked up on the foreshadowing in the maternity ward when the earthquake happened.