groggo Writer/director Benito Zambrano has delivered a brilliant observation of real situations in the lives of a broken family and lonely people who only want to feel useful again.It infuriates me that I cannot see this kind of film -- nothing even remotely approximating it -- from the Hollywood celluloid factory. Given over to LaLaLand, this would have been yet another throwaway melodrama drenched in its own soapiness. In Zambrano's hands, this low-budget gem eschews sentimentality and high-tech wizardry, digs deeply into characterization and shows us a view of the world we wouldn't know existed if we depended on Hollywood to show us. Zabrano's dialogue is just deadly accurate and very 'real'. The acting is uniformly superb, but Maria Galiana as the long-suffering, illiterate, sturdy Earth Mother is astonishing. She ambles on and off the screen with a weary, brilliant light. She has sacrificed her entire life in the service of a husband who doesn't deserve to lick her shoes. She does it because, well, that's the way it is for women of her generation.Carlos Alvarez-Novoa is equally brilliant as the the old neighbour who offers his considerable heart to the mother and to her pregnant-and-confused daughter Maria, beautifully played with passion and rage by Ana Fernandez.Both Galiana and Alvarez-Novoa give us faces and gestures of old and tired people who know too well the unfairness of life for the poor. There is a wonderful scene between the two when Alvarez-Novoa has an attack of diarrhea and Galiana insists on helping him. He resists, telling her he reeks of excrement. Galiana handles the situation as casually as she would the copious body wastes of the pigs she keeps back home in her native village. This tiny touch of humanity is the kind of scene one sees frequently in European films (and rarely, if ever, in flicks from Hollywood). Benito Zambrano has done a masterful job here. Like other politically conscious writers and directors working in Europe, he takes the reality of proletarian existence and makes it into something very real, all without sappiness. This is one terrific film.

Lee Eisenberg I saw "Solas" (called "Alone" in English) at the 2000 Portland International Film Festival. It's always good to be able to see something non-Hollywood, especially considering the subject matter here. Maria (Ana Fernandez) comes from an abusive household and seeks to get away. When the father ends up in the hospital, Maria and the mother resist the idea of going to see him, but end up going anyway to see whether or not they can make amends with him.A major point is that the mother actually looks like someone who has been in an abusive relationship (in a Hollywood movie, she would probably look like Julia Roberts; or be played by her). It's a truly effective look at relationships and how they shape who we are.

madshy If you where run over by the Miramax foreign film juggernaut, then you missed this brilliant gem tucked away in one those twenty seats cinema theater.A film is very much like a painting, meant to be seen not discussed or explained. So let us just leave it at 'see it'.Benito Zambrano's talent on the other hand merits more than a discussion. A sensitive director and a poignant writer. In many ways 'Solas' reminded me of another gem in the dust 'Heavy'.Benito managed to keep the movie so simple, that it hurts. His flare for observing and then relaying in his film the raw human angst, is inspiring.The actors for there part, rose to the greatness of the moment.BZ makes us cling to hope by our finger nails while steadily adding to our feet the weight of reality. But then, isn't that life!To look for hope in 'Solas' is to look for simplicity in 'Guernica'. It's there, you just need to see it.And like all good things in life this one is elusive too. No video or a DVD release yet.Once again, it lives up to it's name.

silviopellerani Nowadays it is not so easy to find a film that hits directly your heart and sentiments. Benito Zambrano gives an opportunity to recover all those sentiments that are well hidden in your subconscious.Carmona is a small town too close to Seville to have a real identity and is the frame for a difficult and impossible relationship between a daughter, mother and father. Zambrano shows how difficult is to grow up in this outcast and bit farmer town with the leit-motiv of these three characters that join back together due to the father's illness. The father is marked rude and impolite, used to hit the wife or the daughter to show his total dominance and authority. The wife was totally subjected to this situation and the opportunity to find some understanding and heat with their neighbour is accepted with detachment by her. This side relationship with a lonely man brings back love to this sad and destroyed family. The daughter is even worse, alcoholic and in love with a truck driver who does not care of her pregnancy.The loneliness of the void with a breach of optimism is well expressed in this simple but very effective and straight film.Rating: 7/10