Details
Movie Description
Like Satyajit Ray's APARAJITO or Yasujiro Ozu's TOKYO STORY, director Benito Zambrono's SOLAS is a quiet, realistic film that examines relationships between parents and children, the decline of traditional values, and urban anomie. While waiting for her husband to recover in a hospital, a mother (Maria Galiana) stays with her estranged daughter, Maria (Ana Fernandez), who fled her parents rural home in Andalusia because she could no longer bear her father's abusiveness and her mother's passivity. As the daughter struggles to find dignity in her job and her relationships with men, her mother quietly tries to brighten the life of her daughter and an elderly neighbor with only a dog for a companion. Gradually, Maria realizes that behind her mother's passivity is a strength and compassion that is rare in modern Spain. SOLAS, which means alone, is a low-budget film using little-known actors; it's strong and moving, however, with emotionally wrenching performances from the entire cast. Setting a high standard with his feature-film debut, Zambrano suggests that the solution to loneliness and poverty lies in remembering how to care for others.
Film Notes
DVD Features:
Region 1 Encoding
Keep Case
Theatrical release: September 8, 2000.
Jami Bernard of the New York Daily News named SOLAS one of the 10 best films of 2000.
Industry Reviews
"...[A] quietly moving film..."
New York Times - p.E10 - Stephen Holden (09/08/2000)
"...A tender redemptive glow..."
Entertainment Weekly - p.53 - Owen Gleiberman (09/22/2000)
"...An uncommon degree of nuance and sensitivity....Beautifully understated and touching..."
Hollywood Reporter - p.17-20 - Frank Scheck (09/12/2000)
"...Modest and affecting..."
Sight and Sound - p.56 - Paul Julian Smith (07/01/2001)
"...SOLAS recalls the classic 'woman's picture' where the heroine resolves a wrenching domestic crisis....This is a story of family and city, and building new bonds for getting buy..."
Chicago Sun-Times - Bill Stamets (09/22/2000)
"[An] unassuming little gem....Delicately realised and sympathetically portrayed, this is, simply, a lovely film."
Uncut - Robert McTaggart (08/01/2004)
Quotations
"People should be born twice. Once rich, once poor, so the rich could know poverty, and the poor would know happiness."--Maria to Rosa
"To be a mother, you have to be a woman. You're only half a woman, the other half is alcohol."--Juan to Maria
"What I want for you to say is that my life will change."--Maria to her neighbor
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