Solas
Screening: 22nd March 2004
Spain 1998 (subtitles)
Directed by Benito Zambrano
Leading players ~ Ana Fernández, María Galiana, Carlos Álvarez-Novoa.
Synopsis
Solas is the Spanish word for ‘alone’ and this film tells the story of two women who feel this way but have different methods of dealing with it. Maria (Fernández) is angry and frustrated with her lot - she lives in a run-down area of Seville, can only get work as a cleaner and has a loser for a boyfriend. She takes to drink in an effort to escape. Her illiterate mother, Rosa (Galiana), comes to the city from her home village and, in the face of Maria’s grudging hospitality, demonstrates the resilience and good-heartedness of someone who has learnt to accept hardship. The gap that has grown up between them over the years seems impossible to span.Whilst waiting for her brutish husband to recuperate in hospital, the reason she has come to Seville, Rosa strikes up a friendship with her daughter’s neighbour, a widower (Álvarez-Novoa) who is also lonely, having no-one except his dog for company. He treats her with dignity and respect: the first time in her life a man has behaved this way towards her.
Rosa’s inner strength carries her through and she quietly gets on with things, eventually finding a way all three of them can improve their lives.
* * * * * *
Winner of the Audience Award at the 1999 Berlin Film Festival and several Goya awards from Spain’s Academy of Arts & Science, this accomplished, unsentimental but touching movie is Benito Zambrano’s first feature film and it promises well for his future projects.Topics it addresses include the way city life has eroded human communication, the pain of being alone, the inevitable differences that occur between generations and the necessity for hope. This all may sound rather earnest, if not depressing but, whilst this film does not cater for those interested in big dramatic scenes, the outstanding acting by the three leads and the director’s sure touch, leave one profoundly moved.
