Blog: A grand old theater, a middle class house: How Mexico City’s landscape helped Alfonso Cuarón tell the story of ‘Roma’

Roma was one of those early 20th century neighborhoods that aspired to the European — in the words of historian Enrique De Anda, an attempt “to make of Mexico, the Vienna or Paris of the Americas.” The northern half was grander, in a late 19th century, Beaux Arts way. The southern half, Roma Sur, where Cuarón’s family lived, was more Modern and residential. By the ’70s, the neighborhood was fraying in parts, referred to in jest as “Colonia Roña,” remembers the director. “It’s like a scab.”