Alfonso Cuarón’s luminous memory play “Roma” may be the purest example of what the snobs call “cinema” — applying a filmmaker’s skills to show life as it is, in black and white, with no musical score or other artificial tricks.
But because of how the production was financed — and how that has determined where viewers are likely to see it, in a theater or on a TV screen — a debate is raging among those same snobs about whether “Roma” should count as a movie at all.
When one watches “Roma,” whether on a big screen or a small one, there is no debate: “Roma” should not only count as a movie, but as one of the year’s best.