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Frustrated and embittered by her life of drudgery, 35 year-old Maria's (Fernández) life spirals further into despair when she is impregnated by her feckless boyfriend who then quickly abandons her. Determined to have the child aborted, Maria's plans are temporarily put on hold when her elderly mother Rosa (Galliana) comes to Seville to stay while her brutish husband (Paco de Osca) recuperates in hospital following surgery. An embittered alcoholic, Maria is estranged from her parents, particularly her father from whom she inherited her temper and violent disposition.
Writer-director Zambrano's film - much garlanded with Goya awards in his Spanish homeland - is a brave, audacious film that never shies away from the authentically harsh realities it depicts. Largely concerned with the dichotomy between rural and country existence, the erosion of communication, generational chasms, and the tyranny of the patriarch, it's a self-determinedly sober, at times wilfully brutal affair which makes for uncompromising but compelling viewing.
Utterly without sentiment and filmed with a formal precision that keeps histrionics to a minimum, its real power perhaps comes from the trio of outstanding, highly nuanced central performances. Fernández is especially good as the self destructive Maria, but she's more than matched by the older actors to whom Zambrano gently shifts his intelligently measured attention. Formidable and highly accomplished in every sense, "Solas" is a film of rare perception and evidence of Spanish cinema at its very best.
In Spanish with English subtitles.
