Alfonso Cuarón continues to shock the entire world with Roma, a film that has earned him two Critic’s Choice Awards and is a sure candidate for the Oscars. Almost no one has resisted the urge to comment on the film on social networks: everyone has their own interpretation, from Guillermo del Toro to your aunt.
Now, the controversial philosopher Slavoj Žižek has entered the discussion as only he could: stating that we are all wrong. In his review, published by The Spectator magazine, the Slovenian begins by saying that Rome left a bad taste in his mouth:
Yes, most critics are right to celebrate it as an instant classic, but I can’t get it out of my head that this perception is sustained by a terrifying, almost obscene misinterpretation, and that the film is being celebrated for all the wrong reasons. .
Žižek proceeds to briefly summarize the film’s plot, while also criticizing its most common readings. Cleo, the protagonist played by Yalitza Aparicio, is a domestic worker from an upper-middle class family in the 1970s. Her character has been celebrated for the humility with which she gives herself to the people who employ her. . For the philosopher, this is a red light:
Can we really reduce her to the object of affection of a pampered upper-middle class family, who accepts her as part of themselves only to exploit her better, physically and emotionally?
Cleo’s inherent goodness is a trap that is subtly revealed throughout the film. As detailed:
There is an implicit criticism of his dedication, which is rather the result of his ideological blindness. The obvious dissonances in the family’s treatment of Cleo come to mind: immediately after showing her love and speaking to her ‘as an equal’, they ask her to take care of some housework or prepare something for them.
Žižek proceeds to describe a specific scene in Rome: Sofia, the mother of the family, destroys her husband’s Ford Galaxy as revenge for his infidelity. While she can afford to act this way from her dominant economic position, Cleo must continue with her work, despite facing much more traumatic situations.
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Near the end of Rome, Cleo saves this family’s children from drowning at sea. This heroic act is considered the most dramatic point of the film, but the Slovenian calls it the composition of the shot:
The way (in which it was filmed) completely ignores this dramatic context. There is no exchange of shots between Cleo and the children she saves from her, no dramatic tension between the danger of the children and her effort to save them, no shot that shows us what she sees. This strange inertia of the camera, her reluctance to become involved in the drama, palpably reflects Cleo’s estrangement from her pathetic role as her loyal servant, ready to sacrifice herself.
What does this mean? That Cleo’s actions, no matter how sincere they may seem, are really the fruit of the exploitation to which she is subjected. For the philosopher, the affection that this upper-middle class family professes for him is false; It is part of the trap that enslaves her.
Will Cleo be forever destined to be exploited? Žižek finds a glimmer of emancipation in the film’s last scene. After saving the children on the beach, Cleo returns to the family home. There she meets Adela, another of the domestic workers, and tells her that she “has a lot to tell him”:
Perhaps this means that Cleo is preparing to break out of the trap of her own goodness, becoming aware that her selfless dedication to her family is the very form of her servitude. In other words, Cleo’s total indifference to political concerns, her dedication to his service, is the very form of her ideological identity, it is how she ‘lives’ her ideology. Perhaps explaining her predicament to Adela is the beginning of her ‘class consciousness’, the first step that will make her join the people protesting in the streets. A new figure of Cleo will emerge in this way, one much colder and more implacable – a Cleo freed from the ideological chains of her-her.