La soledad

Jaime Rosales's 'La Soledad' is a bit of an experimental mood-piece. To give it a very slice of life feel, Rosales uses no music or the typical postcard visuals and special effects. It follows the life of a single mother who moves to Madrid from the countryside and of a widow quietly battling her own struggles.

There isn't much that is 'happening' in the film per se. Many of the visuals pretty much mimic glimpses of daily life in Madrid. However, the director focuses too much on the simple visuals that are just there and, as a result, 'La Soledad' moves at a very slow pace. There is some gratuitous nudity (perhaps to compensate for the lethargic pace). Only in the last half hour does it pick up but overall the film failed to keep me engaged.

While the split-screen idea is quite new in Spanish films, at times it serves no purpose and is rather distracting. With the exception of Petra Martinez, most of the actors do a passable job that is nothing particularly outstanding but nothing dreadful either. Martinez is the one who gives a memorable performance as the mother of three trying to hold on to her memory and identity while her selfish eldest daughter continues to push her mother into selling her house to buy a guest house.

Anyway, to sum it up, the editing was a big disadvantage for me especially for a film that heavily relies on mood and less on story.

I never saw anything as dreadful as this movie in my life. Never, I swear! It looks as done with a few Euro (for the camera rental), and nobody working on it got paid I'm sure. It couldn't possibly be any other way; everything is so static that one could fall asleep in every scene --they are THAT LONG--, the camera remains static for minutes at a time, the characters speak utterly boring lines.

The split screen is done with a vengeance to the bitter end of this horrible movie, almost for every scene.

One is forced to seat and seat, watching them do household chores like ironing COMPLETELY two T shirts (or something similar), from the beginning: One sleeve, right side (slOOOOwly), turn it, the other side, turn it; now the other sleeve (slOOOOwly), turn it, the other side, whoops! don't miss that wrinkle! okay, now the bodice of the shirt, be careful because it has to look very nice! let's see, first this side, now turn it (slOOOOwly), the other side..., NOW WE FOLD THE DAMNED THING...(slOOOOwly), and carefully once it's been folded, we lay it with care inside a basket full of other garments previously ironed and folded... in front of the camera... I wanted TO SCREEEEEAM!!!!

LET ME OUT OF HERE!! What do I care about these miserable people's problems!! Stupid people, stupid problems, the dialogs are moronic, so are the actors (probably the director's fault). Although..., maybe now that I think about it..., maybe THERE WAS NOT a director..., that's it! for a movie to be this bad, there was not a director!! Almodovar, Dear Almodovar... Where are you?? We need you, please!!

The lives of a group of women are forensically examined in exemplary fashion by the Spanish director Jaime Rosales. Rosales is one of the least known of European directors but is also one of the most innovative. Here he uses split screen to a great effect than almost anyone else in recent memory. It's brilliant, it's simple and it never feels 'tricksy'. The setting is Madrid and this superbly acted film is as profound and as moving as anything by Almodovar.

The central characters are Adela, (Sonia Almarcha), a young mother who has moved to Madrid with her baby son and Antonia, (Petra Martinez), an older woman with three grown-up daughters. These women make up the backbone of the film and it's their resilience in the face of tragedy that is the main theme of the picture. The men in their lives do their best but they can't measure up; they are secondary characters, patient and somewhat lost. This is a 'women's picture' in the very best sense of the term yet since its debut at Cannes it's been shamefully overlooked. Seek it out.

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.

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.