The word "Solas," which is the title of Benito Zambrano's movie now at
the Harris Theater, means "alone" in Spanish. Those who speak English may
associate it with the word "solace," to comfort and console. The two
seemingly opposite concepts forge an unlikely and ultimately rewarding
coexistence in this Spanish film, winner of the audience award at the 1999
Berlin International Film Festival.
The film establishes the isolation of the key characters early on. A
stocky older woman from the countryside (Maria Galiana) looks lost amid
the polished hallways of a city hospital. On the other side of a window
she finds her husband, who has just undergone major surgery. She has been
staying at the hospital, but the doctor suggests she move in with her
daughter, Maria (Ana Fernandez), although they clearly are estranged.
Maria has just moved in, which is evident -- although the apartment
contains the most basic of furniture, it reeks of odors and a vacancy of
spirit. She gets paid next to nothing as a cleaning woman and resents
anyone who has it better than herself. She won't even interact with her
colleagues at work. She has, her mother says, inherited her father's bad
temper. How bad, we find out later.
Maria wants neither advice nor money from her mother, whom she
considers a foolish old woman.
But Mother brings home a plant, and then a rocker someone else has
discarded. With a stone face conveying both sadness and the slightest hint
of compassionate reproach, she sets about making the place livable -- both
for Maria and for the retired gentleman (Carlos Alvarez-Novoa) who resides
downstairs.
Most of all, Mother adorns their apartments, their lives and,
ultimately, the movie itself with her humanity. She conquers her own
loneliness by spreading her love to the others. She speaks as if she is
being charged by the word, but her stolid and constant presence makes it
seem like she has always been there and always will be.
Galiana's performance may be minimalist in fashion, yet there is
nothing the least bit cold about her. It is Fernandez who gives Maria an
anger that has ice at the core of her fire.
The only force Mother has not been able to tame is her husband, a sour
and jealous old man interested mainly in asserting control. Yet, thanks to
her, by film's end solas turns to solace as strangers become
neighbors and the virtues of dogged simplicity assert themselves in this
moving slice of life.
From www.post-gazette.com
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