| SOLAS Director: Benito Zambrano This quietly moving Spanish film Solas -- which won 11 Goya awards -- by Benito Zambrano is both a dignified drama regarding the loneliness of life and a testament to the altruism of motherhood. Maria (Ana Fernandez), a working class woman in Seville, becomes pregnant by an uncaring boyfriend who refuses to accept the child or pay for an abortion. Distraught and frustrated she deals with the problem by drinking. Enter her mother who comes into the city to stay with Maria while she attends to her husband -- who is recovering from surgery in the Hospital. Maria Galiana (whose character has no name - just ‘Mother’) has a convincing down-to-earth presence and she plays the mother as a selfless, patient, devoted woman who is never too demanding or doting. Part of her resolve, we learn, may be because she has suffered the abuse of her combative husband for years, but stayed by his side anyway. The film takes on another dimension with the introduction of an elder man (Carlos Alvarez-Novoa) who lives one floor below Maria. The man (simply called ‘Neighbor’) is rather lonely; his only company being a loyal German Shepherd dog. The neighbor takes a fancy to Maria’s mother and begins to wait for her to walk by his door (since the elevator is broken) so he can invite her in for coffee or tea. With these scenes the film takes on a sweetly romantic component because we know that the neighbor is too old to be sexually aggressive or overbearing - he simply wants company. One afternoon Mother is alerted to trouble by the German Shepherd and runs to help the neighbor who has been struck with diarrhea: A situation that is certainly embarrassing for the old man but one that makes their bond stronger. Solas is a film about the pain of being alone (the word ‘solas’ means ‘alone’ in Spanish) but it shows that in times of need, the right people can be there for us. In this case it’s a generous old woman -- that seems to gracefully carry the weight of the world on her shoulders -- who comes to the rescue of the two people most in need of her help. Besides being a tribute, Solas is also about how people become connected in the most unlikely ways. Director Zambrano takes this notion into the final scenes, which may suggest that the young woman -- after giving birth -- takes on the role that her mother does, not only for the new born baby but for the lonely neighbor man downstairs. Solas has a neo-realist feel relying more on the actors and their plight than on big drama. Yet by the end it becomes very effective. The only drawback is that the film uses a rather sentimental music score when the script, the directing and the acting seem to be enough to give you a lump in the throat. - Matt Langdon |