La soledad (2007) Reviews

• Pure life, with no additives

  maurazos2008-02-10

  It has been a nice surprise for me to see such a wonderful movie and I recognize that I would not have seen it if it had not been prized with three 2008 Goya Awards (including Best Film and Best Director ones). Of course, Spanish media did not talk too much about it because I can imagine they have not any economical or political interest on it. That is the way they do it. But it is a delight that those kind of films are still done in 21st century, so simple, with no music and not dramatic special effects, with unknown but credible and natural actors and actresses. This film is an effective portrait of the Spanish society today with all its problems and all its virtues, with no typical images for tourists nor false features to sell a brilliant and fiction image of a Spain that does not actually exist. I love the calmed atmosphere that wrap the scenes and the usual division of the image in two halves that let the audience have a double perspective of the scene. The static cameras and the frontal shots make me remember Yasujiro Ozu's style, so I like this film even more. Finally, I must say that this is a film which proves that an excellent film can be done with not big amounts of money: an example to be followed.

• Solitary Fragments

  random_avenger2010-09-25

  The 2004 terrorist attacks against Madrid's public transport system cost the lives of nearly 200 people and strongly affected the sense of security in the country. Spanish director Jaime Rosales' second feature film Solitary Fragments examines the effects of a similar kind of attack on several ordinary people living in Madrid. Adela (Sonia Almarcha), a single mother of a baby boy, finds a home as the flatmate of Inés (Miriam Correa), the daughter of Antonia (Petra Martínez), a widowed mother of three adult daughters. The unexpected terrorist strike drastically changes Adela's life and has an indirect effect on the other characters as well, namely Antonia's other two daughters Nieves and Helena (Nuria Mencía and María Bazán). The story in general is very much dependent on the mood as opposed to plot, which is borderline non-existent. The characters' personalities are revealed indirectly in conversations and long takes of mundane housework, such as ironing or cooking. The focus is on a completely personal level; the turning point of the story is passed very undramatically and the political and societal aspects of the attack are coldly ignored. However, slowly Adele, Antonia and the three sisters start feeling more real and by the quietly hopeful ending they have evolved as human beings. Rosales is said to have been influenced by the cinema Robert Bresson and Yasujiro Ozu, which becomes immediately evident at the beginning of the film. Long static shots combined with a split screen where the other half may well stay empty of action for quite a while make it seem like Rosales considers any kind of camera movement or cutting between different angles a distraction. He also favours wide panoramic shots over tight close-ups and doesn't guide the audience's emotions with any kind of music. The economical, sparsely edited style is also utilized in the numerous conversation scenes where the two halves of the screen can focus on two characters simultaneously, even by having them talk straight to the camera, if not to the audience. For the most part the passive, immobile and distant camera work creates a rather voyeuristic mood, as if the camera doesn't want to interfere in the action by getting too close to the characters. Nevertheless, looking past the surface, the manner of observing things from far is never out of place and allows room for thought in a different way than more ordinary direction would. Even though Rosales' unconventional way of stripping his shots of all distractions is in danger of becoming a distraction itself, his stern vision never allows the style rise over substance. The mise en scène of the split screens and the more traditional compositions are beautiful to watch per se, and the frequent breaking of the 180 degree rule when characters walk from one screen to another fractures the strict realism of traditionally continuous movements. This type of special little touches and the general idea of skipping the expected high points of drama altogether, instead focusing on usually ignored mundane chores, make Solitary Fragments a very interesting experience. Rosales avoids any kind of manipulation and demands a lot of patience from his audience, but those willing to allow images to talk for themselves are in for a treat. The easily bored may want to choose another movie to watch though. Not that there's anything wrong about that – Solitary Fragments was obviously not made to please everyone.

• Natural

  sendmeyourrubbish-596-4099292010-05-22

  Incredibly original, no movements of the camera, no music. Just two stories, just two lives, shown in an incredibly natural way. Unfortunately for foreigners it will be impossible to understand the typical Spanish way of talking of the actors. Maybe they are a little bit polite, in Spain we are more rude while talking, especially in a village where one of the characters (Adela -> Sonia Almarcha) is supposed to come from. In some movies, I have seen actors trying to be natural, but finally they end artificial, in this case the director has managed to make their cast simply real. The performance of the actors is very high, you can believe them...! Especially (Antonia -> Petra Martínez) a very typical Spanish mother who can do anything for their daughters, even forgetting her needs to give the most to them. I have checked the awards and she got just one, I guess there were very good performances that year because on the contrary, I cannot believe that her work does not deserve more. The movie may be categorized as slow, but I think the speed of it is adequate and necessary to represent reality. Finally, I really liked that due to the fix camera, we could watch the characters from perspectives that are not usual in films. It is a great, great movie.

• Scenes from life, a hymn to the quotidian

  Chris Knipp2008-04-26

  Rosales chooses to represent the everyday lives of two women in an everyday way. Short scenes, photographed with fixed cameras, sometimes in split screen; a focus on child rearing, an illness, mundane work (a grocery store, an office, a greeter for a convention), ironing clothes, playing cards, chatting about nothing much at dinner, or on a bus. A bus: ah, now there's some excitement. Young Adela (Sonia Almarcha), whose raising a one-year-old boy by herself and moves to Madrid, is on a bus that's blown up by a terrorist bomb. The next time we see her, she's battered-looking, and heads back to the country to see her aging papa. The mother of one of Adela's nice Madrid flat-mates, Ines (Miriam Correa), is Antonia (Petra Martinez), a widow who runs a grocery store, and the subject of the second story thread. Antonia's story is more complicated than Adela's, since she is closely involved also with two other daughters, Nieves (Nuria Mencia) and Helena (Maria Bazan). Nieves has to have an operation for cancer, and the self-centered Helena wants money so she and her husband can buy a second home. Pedro, Adela's ex, also wants to borrow money from her. All this information is conveyed in the little vernacular scenes, with static cameras looking past objects, or several shots side by side on-screen showing the same people in a scene from different angles, and no music or much ambient sound--except that the last section is called "Background Noise.". It's like looking at a box of snapshots and piecing things together. Needless to say the actors are convincing. It's they who make this seem like eavesdropping on real conversations. Money is tight, obviously. No one is doing especially well. The pressures lead Antonia to consider selling her house and moving in with her boyfriend Manolo (Jesus Cracio). Discussions over this cause a lot of tension within the family. Manolo repeatedly tries to calm things down, but without great effect. There are jealousies that must weigh on Antonia, and she is Nieves' chief support in her illness. Meanwhile Adela has to deal with trauma and loss. 'Solitary Fragments' won three Spanish Goyas, including Best Film and Best Director. It's everyday-ness and its reference to terrorism as a part of common experience may have impressed Spanish audiences especially, together with the dignity and restraint of the film-making technique. Rosales does a good job of balancing non-mainstream methods with humanistic content. Despite the distancing effects of the universally unmoving cameras, the alternating of two almost-unrelated story-lines, and a style that is low keyed to the extreme, one is drawn into the action through the eavesdropping, fly-on-the-wall viewpoint and one's ordinary curiosity about basic experiences and life choices. If this film doesn't awaken enthusiasm in everyone, it does command respect, and it builds gradually throughout its whole length with an increasingly profound sense of lives unfolding. The actual Spanish title is 'La Soledad,' solitude, and subconsciously one is taught by the visual method, which never cuts back and forth in a conversation, for instance, to see each character as separate, essentially, in life, freestanding and alone.

• Loneliness

  jotix1002012-04-11

  This strange Spanish film conceived and directed by Javier Rosales came on the other day on an international cable channel. The film, which seems to have garnered good comments in this forum is one of those films that suffer from an indulgent creator who thinks he must show its audience everyday ordinariness, even mundane things, as part of a visual story for the cinema. The 135 minutes running time needed a stronger hand to edit parts that clearly do not go anywhere. The story is mildly interesting, but do we need to watch the mother, Antonia, as she does the laundry and then gets it to be hung on a clothesline? We do not think so. Like this sequence, there are others that plainly do not go anywhere as staged. The terrorist incident comes out of nowhere, one imagines for shock sake, as though Mr. Rosales had run out of ideas and did not know what to do with Adela, the center figure in the story and the difficult moment she was facing, but otherwise it just does not contribute to the success, or none of the picture. In a way, Mr. Rosales work in this film reminds this viewer of one of his fellow Catalan directors, Max Recha, in his approach to present a story in cinematographic terms. Both men think that more is more, failing to understand that the axiom that less is more. The story as presented shows Adela a woman separated from a husband that does not help her financially with her toddler son, Miguel. She decides to pack her life in the small town to go to Madrid, a questionable move, to begin with. The main downfall of the picture is its rigid structure that is almost devoid of emotion. Adela is lucky in finding a generous flatmate like Ines, and her friend Carlos, after she decides to settle in Madrid. She left her small town to get away from a relationship that went sour. In fact, her story and that of Antonia, the mother of Ines, become intermingled, although neither woman seems to know about the other. Antonia, a middle aged lady, is enjoying a good relationship with a man that loves her for what she is. Antonia two other daughters are another story, the ambitious Helena is sucking her mother dry because she feels she is owed a piece of whatever might be obtained from selling the family house, something that is totally unacceptable to Ines, the family rebel, who sees right through her snobbish sister. The third sister, Nieves, must face an uncertain future when she has diagnosed with cancer. What Mr. Rosales gets is a good ensemble acting from his cast. Sonia Almarcha plays Adele with dignity, as well as with stoicism. Petra Martinez has good moments as Antonia. The daughters are played by Miriam Correa, Nuria Mencia and Maria Bazan. The most annoying aspect of this hermetic film is the way Mr. Rosales usage of the split screen that keeps his characters faces out of the camera, robbing the audience of the pleasure of watching the actors work. This is a film that if not seen on a festival, or on cable, will not get a commercial run except in Spain.