Roma (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

With his eighth and most personal film, Alfonso Cuarón recreated the early-1970s Mexico City of his childhood, narrating a tumultuous period in the life of a middle-class family through the experiences of Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, in a revelatory screen debut), the indigenous domestic worker who keeps the household running. Charged with the care of four small children abandoned by their father, Cleo tends to the family even as her own life is shaken by personal and political upheavals. Written, directed, shot, and coedited by Cuarón, Roma is a labor of love with few parallels in the history of cinema, deploying monumental black-and-white cinematography, an immersive soundtrack, and a mixture of professional and nonprofessional performances to shape its author’s memories into a world of enveloping texture, and to pay tribute to the woman who nurtured him. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • 4K digital master, supervised by director Alfonso Cuarón, with Dolby Atmos soundtrack • Road to “Roma,” a new documentary about the making of the film, featuring behind-the-scenes footage and an interview with Cuarón • Snapshots from the Set, a new documentary featuring actors Yalitza Aparicio and Marina de Tavira, producers Gabriela Rodríguez and Nicolás Celis, production designer Eugenio Caballero, casting director Luis Rosales, executive producer David Linde, and others • New documentaries about the film’s sound and postproduction processes, featuring Cuarón; Sergio Diaz, Skip Lievsay, and Craig Henighan from the postproduction sound team; editor Adam Gough; postproduction supervisor Carlos Morales; and finishing artist Steven J. Scott • Trailers • Alternate French subtitles and Spanish SDH for the film • PLUS: Essays by novelist Valeria Luiselli and historian Enrique Krauze, along with writing by author Aurelio Asiain and production-design images with notes by Caballero