REVIEW
Do you have a good memory? Could you
recall things from your childhood easily?
I have a very good memory. Memory is a funny
thing, because once you connect to a memory,
it opens a labyrinth of doors, in which one
memory triggers a new memory. You know,
it’s like [writer Jorge Luis] Borges says: “We
are our memory, that pile of broken mirrors.”
But yeah, I can access and dig into my memories,
particularly my childhood. Memories like that,
where you focus in on one detail and it takes you
to another one. Sometimes it’s just one object,
one smell, one tiny detail that triggers a series
of emotions and moments. Right now, frankly,
I’m not even slightly interested in trying to go
into my childhood again.
Unusually, for an autobiographical film,
the central character is not based on
you. Was there ever a point where it was
focused on the little boy?
Never. I never considered that. Because as
important as it was for me to come to terms
with the past from the standpoint of my present,
it’s as much about the personal as it is the
environment. It’s environment that creates
those moments. Yes, the character is Cleo
[played by Yalitza Aparicio]. But there’s another
character that is as strong and important in
this film, and that’s context. The tension
between the forces of the foreground and the
background, the character and the environment,
the character and the social context. It was
also about trying to come to terms with my
country, because I cannot divorce the complexity
How did that meticulousness square
with the chaos of the fi lm? There are so
many moments that feel rich and messy
and unplanned.
Everything was chaotic. And chaos is beautiful.
Because chaos is life. I wanted all of those
elements. I didn’t want anybody to know what
we were doing because I didn’t want to have
anything organised or preconceived. I was
trying to discover among all this chaos what
was going to come through. I had absolute
control of the details but not the control of the
moments. Sometimes it was just like a traffi c
jam in which nothing works at all, you know?
Sometimes it felt like too much chaos, chaos
that didn’t even have a pulse, an interval. But
there were times in which that chaos just...
came together in a moment. And everybody felt
it, when those moments happen. Everybody
would feel it.How did the cast get on with this
way of working? You had a mix of
actors and non-actors. Did that make
things complicated?
The funny thing is that the non-actors didn’t
have any experience on how the process worked,
so they thought it was like that. They didn’t
question. They were just being themselves. For
Marina [de Tavira], who’s a trained actor, it was
a very diffi cult process. The fi rst couple of weeks
of the shoot, she suff ered like
crazy. Eventually, she started
to fl ow into it.Was it complicated from
your point of view, too,
as both director and
cinematographer? Did you
ever struggle with juggling
responsibilities?
I enjoyed it. It’s a funny thing:
I think it was fundamental for
this fi lm. I was constantly
digging into this sense of
memory, and there were
angles that for me were so
important; a specifi c light
that I remembered. I enjoy
the collaboration with
the DP. It’s one of my
favourite collaborations. I love collaborating
with good DPs. But if I had had Chivo [regular
cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki] on set,
I would be bouncing stuff all the time. And that
would have taken me out of my introspective
mode. I would have been making choices
that would be aesthetic. On Roma, I chose
the angle not because it was the best angle but
because it was right for this project. Let me
put it this way: I’m sure that if Chivo had
ended up doing it, it would have been way
more beautiful! But it would not have been
as truthful to what I was trying to do. I needed
that truth. JOHN NUGENTROMA IS OUT NOW ON DVD AND BLU-RAYMain:Cuarón and
Aparicio prep on
location in Colonia
Roma.Below:The
film was shot in
sequence around
Mexico City.of life [from] the complexity of the cultural roots
and where you come from.Recreating those environments was
a painstaking, meticulous process.
Are you quite an obsessive person,
by nature?
[Laughs] In life, it’s diff erent. When you’re
making a fi lm, you focus in a diff erent way
than when you’re just in your normal life.
If it’s any sort of creative endeavour — you
know, if I’m doing an alteration to my home
— I’m going to become very detail-oriented.
But maybe I have fl aws that are the opposite.
Important, fundamental details go through
the cracks sometimes.