Acting as his own director

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.