ROMA

Directed by ALFONSO CUARÓN

Starring YALITZA APARICIO, MARINA DE TAVIRA, DIEGO CORTINA AUTREY

Released 14 DECEMBER

Let’s open on a question, a pretty hefty one all told: what is cinema? It’s sound and images and edits and actors, but what is its purpose, its wider function, its place within the ecosystem of art? Some movies can be seen as dreams made manifest, a portal into a realm of subjective fantasy. Movies can be political tools, whose purpose is to teach or convince the viewer of what the makers believe to be a rational viewpoint. They are lessons to be learned, repeated and occasionally dismissed out of hand. There are movie artefacts which calcify a moment in time, whether through their formal innovations, their ideological leanings, their tone or their character. Or maybe they were in-built with a