★★★★☆
Two stoical women divided by class are the heart and soul of the Oscar-winning director’s most personal film yetNo matter what they tell you – women, we are always alone.” That’s a cry that echoes through writer/director Alfonso Cuarón’s gently sweeping, awards-tipped epic, his first Mexican-based movie since 2001’s Y Tu Mamá También. Inspired by memories of his childhood in Mexico City, and bristling with historical upheavals that mirror the domestic traumas (the Corpus Christi massacre of 1971 is shockingly restaged), it’s a bravura evocation of time and place, as richly detailed as the artfully designed worlds of Children of Men or A Little Princess. But at its heart are two women – both embattled yet resilient, and from very different backgrounds – who are left to clean up the mess after being abandoned or betrayed by the men in their lives.

Newcomer Yalitza Aparicio makes an astonishingly natural debut as Cleo, domestic worker for a well-to-do family headed by Doctor Antonio (Fernando Grediaga), at their spacious townhouse in the Colonia Roma neighbourhood. Antonio drives a grand black Ford Galaxie that he squeezes into the house’s tiled courtyard whenever he is home, an increasingly rare event. His wife, Sofía (Marina de Tavira), is a biochemist by trade, but her life seems increasingly ruled by anxiety about her husband’s absence.

Also in the house are Sofía’s children, her elderly mother and their bouncingly frustrated dog, Borras. Cleo spends her days tending to the family – looking after the kids, preparing food, constantly washing floors, dishes and clothes. She confides in best friend Adela (Nancy García), and strikes up a romance with handsome buck Fermín (Jorge Antonio Guerrero), who takes her to the park and to the movies, and indulges in naked displays of his martial arts skills. But like Antonio, Fermín proves an inconstant partner, leaving Cleo to fend for herself when things get complicated, refusing to take responsibility for his actions.

Acting as his own director of photography (he also edits), Cuarón conjures widescreen monochrome images that combine eerie beauty with startling authenticity. Long takes allow conversations and interactions to play out in real time, the camera panning sedately back and forth through the impressively choreographed action. More than once, the image glides slowly through a full 360 degrees, as if to show us the entirety of the world Cuarón and production designer Eugenio Caballero have created.

However frenzied or frenetic events may become (riots and earthquakes feature), these images retain an almost impassive serenity. In an echo of Emmanuel Lubezki’s spiralling work on Gravity, Cuarón’s camera seems to have a weightless quality, drifting inexorably through turbulent environments. (A cinema-trip sequence of floating astronauts from John Sturges’s 1969 sci-fi film Marooned offers a hint of autobiographical inspiration.)

At times there’s a carnivalesque quality to the drama, with marching bands and circus performers being shot out of cannons invoking the ghost of Federico Fellini, whose 1972 classic Roma was similarly self-reflexive. But for all its eye-catching visuals, it’s the audio design that really sells Cuarón’s story. With its bewilderingly intricate tapestry of distant street sounds, ambient noise and close-up conversations, this really is a film that you can watch with your ears. Indeed, although many viewers will catch this on Netflix (where it’s available from 14 December), the soundtrack provides the strongest argument for seeking out a cinema with the best possible sound system and letting the movie engulf you like a roaring wave.

Fittingly, water is a recurrent motif – from the soapy suds of the opening credits (signalling the “woman’s work” that is never done?) to the breaking waters that prefigure a harrowing scene of unblinking sorrow, to the poignant Veracruz beach finale in which strong thematic undercurrents are given literal physical form. We see also planes reflected in that water, passing overheard, distant and unreachable, like a dream of escape. Yet for all its ground’s-eye view of the world, there is a hint of the magic that Cuarón evoked so effortlessly in films such as Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. A child who can apparently remember his past lives burbles matter of factly about this strange miracle, announcing significantly: “When I was older I used to be a sailor, but I drowned in a storm…”

Occasionally the almost showy virtuosity of the film-making can prove a distraction, making a very personal project seem more like a technical tour de force. But it’s a minor quibble, and one that I suspect may seem foolish on the second viewing that such a multilayered work demands.