A few years back, when Weyburn had an operating theatre and my daughters were younger, I took them to see a new version of the classic story, “A Little Princess”, starring a young actress named Liesel Matthews.
It was a beautifully shot and (I thought) well-done movie, and my daughters were slightly amazed that I had tears in my eyes at certain points (“Dad! You cried!” “No no, the sun got in my eyes …”).
This film was the first one by a director named Alfonso Cuaron that I had seen, and it certainly wasn’t the last.
In more recent years, he had a sort-of science fiction movie with one of my all-time favourite actresses, Sandra Bullock, called “Gravity”, and while some people didn’t like it, I very much enjoyed this movie.
For one thing, besides Sandra, it had the aspect of silence, which is in fact what you would find in space, as she dealt with her rather heart-stopping situation. And aside from her conversations with George Clooney, the movie was in large part a one-woman show.
Cuaron won the Oscar for Best Director for this movie, recognizing his talents as a film-maker.
Most recently, Cuaron made a movie based in Mexico City, where he grew up, called “Roma”, and if you were watching the Oscars on Sunday evening, he won three Academy Awards for this intimate little film that he released through Netflix, including for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Cinematography and Best Director.
Of these awards, I am especially happy that he won for the cinematography, because when I watched the movie, this to me was part of the beauty of this film. It’s beautifully shot, and it’s all in black-and-white, which some people might deem to be out-moded and old-fashioned.
As a photographer, I can appreciate the beautiful images, and as one who used to photograph in black-and-white, back in the days of film, there is a certain beauty to this medium that is quite different from colour.
(Besides, some of the best movies ever made were in black-and-white, like “Casablanca” and “Citizen Kane” as two prime examples.)
Quite aside from that, the story Cuaron tells is about the “invisible” domestic help who ordinarily would be in the background of a movie. In this movie, the two young ladies who work as domestics for a family are the central characters of the movie, and he tells their story in a very touching, human way that includes how they deal with loss and death, and life. What impressed me also as Cuaron won awards for this movie at the Golden Globes as well as at the Oscars, he always made it a point to give full credit to the two young women who were the main actresses of his story.
