I’ve just come back from seeing Alfonso Cuarón’s epic drama Roma, one of the most acclaimed films of the year. It’s definitely going to play a key role in awards season.
I’ll tell you right off the bat that it’s a great film and it lives up to the reviews.
I also want to give you a heads up: this has one of the year’s best male nude scenes, hands-down.
Set in Mexico City in the 1970s, Roma is Oscar-winning Gravity and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director Cuarón’s most personal picture to date; it’s largely based on his childhood and the strong women who raised him.
The main character is a maid and nanny named Cleo who works for a wealthy family.
Early in the film, Cleo takes a lover. He’s a martial artist named Fermín. Before the film even reaches the half-hour mark (it runs a fairly epic 135 minutes), we get a bedroom scene where Cleo sits in bed and watches Fermín, who is completely naked, perform a martial arts routine with a shower rod. Cleo is watching this with a mix of reverence and horniness— maybe even a little intimidation, representative of what we the audience are feeling.
Cuarón is his own director of photography here, and I think he has a very good shot at winning a Best Cinematography Oscar this year. Roma is shot in black & white, and every frame is exquisite.
Fermín’s naked martial arts routine is no exception. And it’s lengthy. It’s about a full minute of some of the most gorgeously lit and masterfully photographed man candy to make it to the big screen ever. See it for yourself when Roma is released. Personally, I think this will go down as one of the all-time great nude scenes. And I’m not just spouting hyperbole. I mean it.
Full-frontal male nudity in film seems to be all the rage right now—and thank God. Women have been forced to show us the goods, often for absolutely no reason, for over a century of cinema. It’s about time we turned the tables a bit—and maybe even had some fun with it.
Roma opens in two theaters, one in LA and one in NYC, Nov. 21. It will expand to select theaters before coming to Netflix streaming Dec. 14.
What’s the most gorgeous, tasteful and handsomely photographed nude scene you’ve ever seen? Let us know in the comments.
Agree that there is less good close-up shots of womens lower parts than men. Breast yes, but pussyshots no.
Women have never shown their
Women have never shown their vulva the equitant to the male penis so not sure what you mean by they have been showing us the goods?