If
Oprah Winfrey hosted a Movie of the Month Club, instead of one
devoted to books, you can be certain that the new
Spanish-language film, "Solas" ("Alone"), would be one of the
selections examined. It deals with the power of the human
spirit to cleanse, cure and correct.
It is also one of the all-time great "mother movies."
Written and directed by Benito Zambrano, "Solas" shows a
mother who keeps her pain to herself, often reacting to her
abusers by rewarding them with small favors. She is a
veritable saint.
This might sound a bit treacly and certainly has the
potential to be just that, but Zambrano has made matters
palatable by keeping things simple, by giving his mother
character an opaque dignity that never grates, and by having
cast vetean Spanish actress Mar¨ªa Galiana in the role.
It also helps that Galiana's role, while being the heart
and soul of the film, is not necessarily the lead character.
That goes to Ana Fern·ndez, who plays the mother's dispirited
daughter, Mar¨ªa, the only character in "Solas" with a name.
The movie immediately takes us into Mar¨ªa's pathetic world,
keeping her mother on the periphery. Mar¨ªa is one of four
children who have escaped a life made horrible by a tyrant of
a father (Paco De Osca). While her siblings have relocated to
northern Spain, about as far away as they could get, Mar¨ªa has
settled into a nowhere existence in the run-down San Bernardo
section of Seville, where she flits from one low-paying job to
the next and from one loutish boyfriend to the next. She
drinks and smokes too much, and about the only joy she has is
the fantasy that she might win the lottery.
When we meet Mar¨ªa, she's 35, living in a depressing
apartment, working as a late-night cleaning woman in an office
building, stealing shots of liquor from the neighborhood bar
and is a few months pregnant. She wants to get an abortion,
and her married truck driver-boyfriend (Juan Fern·ndez)
encourages her to do so. But he'll have no part of it. She's
on her own.
Mar¨ªa blames the immobility of her life on her father, for
having chipped away at her self-confidence with his verbal
abuse, and, indirectly, on her mother -- both for letting him
get away with it and for providing a bad example. Mar¨ªa has
nothing but contempt for her mother's passivity.
Up to this point, the film is tough to watch. But its
spirit lightens when Mar¨ªa's mother shows up to stay with her
daughter while the father is in a local hospital for some kind
of surgery. The movie is about how the mother's mere presence
gives Mar¨ªa a new outlook.
Galiana, who has a stoic face through much of the film,
trudges from the hospital to the apartment and back again. At
the hospital, where she crochets gifts for people, she is
constantly berated by her narrow-minded,
suspicious-of-all-things husband, who makes outrageous
accusations.
At home, she brightens up her daughter's apartment a bit
with flowers. She also gets to know Mar¨ªa's neighbor, an
elderly gentleman (Carlos ¡lvarez-Novoa) who lives alone with
his pet dog, named Achilles.
You'd be surprised how touching this film becomes as it
goes on. The mother actually makes the world a better place
for the people she tends to, and the film reaches something of
a poignant peak when the woman comments, but without bragging,
that she has a clear conscience and has never set out to hurt
anyone.
Her serenity becomes humbling after a while, but the big
point is that her life-affirming ways never take on a
self-congratulatory air. By the end of the film, its title
makes sense. This woman, unlike her daughter and her husband,
has made peace with herself and likes herself. She realizes
that she is alone in the world -- as we all are -- and this
knowledge has enriched her.
Without becoming preachy, "Solas" teaches little life
lessons about patience, tolerance and unconditional love. As
Oprah Winfrey would probably say, it gets you in touch with
your spirit.
From www.movieclub.com
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