In his latest film Mexican Director Alfonso Cuarón creates a time: 1970 – 1971, and a space: Mexico City’s upscale neighborhood Colonia Roma were Mexicans of all ages can relate; or in most cases they pretend to relate. The older generation, the ones who in the city during those tumultuous years, are overcome with a sense of nostalgia, the new are filled with curiosity. For the most part, euphoria permeates the national pride for the film, although some negative reaction has emerged both in Mexico and Spain.

The film portrays an upper-middle-class family as their lives unravel through the perspective of their servant, a Zapotec woman from Oaxaca, named Cleodegaria Gutierrez (or “Cleo,” as she is affectionately called). In this context, and using a sense of magical realism, Director Cuarón tells his own childhood story. The movie manages to be autobiographical, while simultaneously presenting an authentic depiction of Cleo’s socioeconomic conditions. On the one hand, he presents a family adapting to the realities of life amid divorce. The father leaves for a new romance and the mother stays behind, not entirely by choice, to pick up the pieces and rearrange her own life. On the other hand, bravely enough, Cuarón accurately depicts the ugliness of the many forms of racism in Mexican society against its indigenous population. The film reveals the conflict between class and ethnicity, that still plagues Mexican society, through exploitation of poor people who come to the city to escape extreme poverty. This exploitation has created a class of people, mostly female, working within a system rooted in slavery and indentured servitude.

This bifurcated story is masterly portrayed in the film. There is a balance in the way two very different realities intertwine. The film’s target audience is mostly urban and semi-professional. As such, the movie is being celebrated for depicting Mexican urban life in the early 1970’s. Ironically, Cuarón is being showered with accolades for depicting a reality that for many never existed. Let’s keep in mind that most Mexicans are not middle-class and never had a chance to live in Colonia Roma or in the type of house where the story develops. Perhaps this is a case of unintended “The Way We Never Were.”  

In my view the movie has a much deeper side, one that goes beyond the feel-good vibe created by Cuarón’s own childhood memories: music, the beat of The City, romantic rendezvouses, and even political events (like the June 10^th, 1971, massacre depicted in the film where I lost two very close friends). Cuarón challenges the viewer by not dwelling on the tragedies of his own dysfunctional family, and centering the story on the strength of an unlikely hero Cleo, the servant of the house; who in any other narrative might be a totally peripheral character. And here is where things get funky because Cuarón’s “poison pills” in the storyline aimed at short minded viewers who reacted negatively to the fact that the main protagonist is an indigenous woman. And sure enough, right at the time when Yalitza Aparicio has received nominations for her haunting performance of Cleo, some “parochial” critics, as Cuarón gently calls them, dissented because she doesn’t look like a “real Mexican.” In Mexico someone called the actress, who is an indigenous person, “cardboard colored person,” and in Spain the movie was presented with Spanish subtitles in response to Cuarón’s use of Mixtec and Mexican subtitles.

For a brief moment, Cleo is elevated to the status of family savior. But once back home, although celebrated, she resumes her daily life as a domestic worker.

To add insult to injury, Cuarón demonstrates that women don’t need to look like Lynda Carter or Gal Gadot, to name just two, to be an everyday, real-life Wonder Woman. Our real hero here, Cleo, does everything and more to fulfill her role. She takes care of the daily necessities of a family of three adults, four children, and a dog. Domestic work, ranging from cooking, cleaning, caring for the kids, and taking on the emotional labor of the adults are part of her everyday routine. She is the keeper of family secrets and does what she can to absorb the brunt of all traumatic impact for the children. Again, all this while she deals with the top down racism within the house where she is a servant and with her lover, by whom she is pregnant.

There are three instances, or moments, were Cuarón exalts Cleo’s extraordinary virtues and portrays her as the real hero of the movie:

In the first moment, during a hospital visit to find out about her own pregnancy, Cleo finds herself in the maternity ward separated by a glass window from a group of newly born babies. Suddenly an earthquake starts rattling the building, cracking down windows and dropping plaster on the baby’s incubators. As is usual in these cases everybody panics and runs in different directions, except Cleo whom calmly keeps an ever-observant eye on the newly born.

During the second moment, Cleo’s lover, a thug and member of the paramilitary group known as “Halcones,” undergoes training to attack students and other social groups critical of the government. She travels to a remote location in the outskirts of the city where a whole squadron of Halcones are being led by Dr. Zovek (a shadowy real-life character who specialized in martial arts technique). In a moment of levity, the trainer dares the whole squadron of Halcones to mimic him in a mind over body experiment. He also dares the public, among them Cleo, to try to replicate the complicated move he is about to do. Dr. Zovek announces that not even the most qualified athlete was able to master it. He then covers his eyes, strikes a Zen pose and dares everyone to do the same. The group struggles to maintain their balance as they attempt to raise their arms and stand on one leg. Cleo, with tremendous grace and fortitude, calmly maintains the pose.

Finally in the third, and perhaps most heroic, moment, the mother of the house takes the family on a trip to give the father time to retrieve some belongings from the house. She takes the family to the beach in Tuxpan Veracruz, where she plans to officially announce their divorce to the children. Cleo, who coping with the physical and emotional trauma of losing her child at birth, is invited to join the trip. She sits at the beach, not knowing how to swim, and struggles to cope with the pain of her loss. Cleo appears absent minded, distant, and overwhelmed by her thoughts. But suddenly all that stops when Cleo must be Cleo again, and against all odds, she charges into the enormous waves to save the two children who are drowning. All of this, once again, after being terrified by the water because she doesn’t know how to swim.

For a brief moment, Cleo is elevated to the status of family savior. But once back home, although celebrated, she resumes her daily life as a domestic worker. And here is the rub: the movie ends with no expectation of improving Cleo’s condition or socioeconomic status. After a moment that can be categorized as therapeutic on all sides, Cleo regains the old spark in her eyes. She returns to the old Roma house, resumes her life as the servant, and to some degree, the backbone of a family that considers her, out of necessity, part of their own. Cleo will remain part of the family conversation; at least the part when she literally saves the lives of the children, and therefore will remain a Wonder Woman. But having said that, as it happens with thousands of other Wonder Women in Colonia Roma, Colonia Beverly Hills, Colonia Embarcadero, Colonia Little Village and the innumerable other Colonias in the world, she will never sleep in the house (her room is on the roof), never share the same table (Cleo eats in the kitchen), and never share some of the many privileges exclusive of the real members of the family.