Sólo mía

Paz Vega is just as famous as Penelope Cruz in Spain. Vega was excellent in the film Sex with Lucia and now she shines in Solo Mia. Solo Mia is excellent it shows the humiliation and the torture women experience due to domestic violence.Also, Solo Mia is very different from many Spainish films I have seen this movie is not about love or no latin lover this movie is about a cruel evil man Joquain played by Sergi Lopez that is insecure and hates his wife. Unlike typical North American movies on domestic violence Solo Mia goes BEYOND just showing Joquain beat his wife Angela once or twice this movie goes beneath your skin and SHOWS HOW HORRIBLE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IS. Also, when Angela goes to court to get Joquain charged she learns Spainsh women have NO RIGHTS IN TERMS OF PROTECTING THEMSELVES FROM THEIR HUSBANDS. The movie also is a social commentary on Spainsh attitudes towards domestic violence but also about Spain's brtual sexism and misogyny against women. Paz Vega can now be seen in the Adam Sandler flick Spanglish but Vega is a true star already. I wish Vega great success in the future. I admire European cinema that doesn't sugar coat violence against women like North American films tend to do.

This is a decent film about domestic abuse with the final conclusion that you don't hit the ones you love. Period. There is also a fair amount of social commentary concerning the weak laws that protect abused women from their husbands, especially when a child is involved.

What is scary is that people still think that it is OK for a husband to beat his wife in this day and age. That is not love. The previous comment on this page mentioned that the film showed the husband to be completely at fault. He is. She smokes while she is pregnant. That is a terrible thing to do, but it does not warrant how he beats her, kicks her while she is on the ground, gives her black eyes and slams her head into the cupboards.

Normally I would say that this film is sad, but trite. However after seeing the post before mine, perhaps much of the world hasn't yet figured out that domestic abuse can never be justified. You don't hit the ones you love.

Unfortunately this film, which predates `Te doy Mis Ojos' (qv), escaped my attention, such that I have only now come to see it, billed as the fare for the great `Night of Spanish Cinema' on the state-run RTVE last Sunday. My biggest grouse is that they tend to put these films on too late, conveniently forgetting that most people have to be up and about, fit and ready to go on Monday morning. Maybe this is the reason for Monday being the lowest productivity-output day of the week, as, logically, many people succumb to the inevitable `mondayitis', for which no multinational pharmaceutical company has as yet come up with a suitable medication. Long live `mondayitis, I say, just as long as RTVE can find enough films of sufficient import to keep people up and wading through excessively long publicity breaks. However, on several occasions recently, I have found myself getting to about half-way through a film, when the second break for commercials appears, and I just switch off and retire to bed so as to be fresh and invigorated for the next morning.

`Sólo mía' is another film about gender violence in the family. It adopts a totally different attitude to the subject matter when compared with Icíar Bollaín's film which is at once more subtle in its telling. `Sólo mía' shoves the nitty-gritty between your teeth so that you can choke on it: some of the scenes are too explicit, one might argue, and are numerously frequent; in `Te doy Mis Ojos' the hard subject matter is more carefully handled.

However, Paz Vega, who starred in `Lucía y el Sexo' (qv) the same year, put in a recommendable performance as the badly beaten and tortured young mother; Sergi López as her husband plays his part well, though at times seemed to overforcefully portray his performance, thus almost beggaring belief. It should be said that his rôle was very tricky, to say the least. I feel that Luis Tosar carried off his performance in `Te doy Mis Ojos' more convincingly, with better balancing between the extremes of tensions and feelings.

The rest of the cast form a good back-up to the leading couple.

This film also points an accusing finger at the legal system, in which hypocritical legalities and aloofness does little - or nothing - to help solve this horrifying situation so evident today in so many headlines in Spain today. Something has got to be done: more than 70 women were killed in `gender violence' in Spain in 2003.

If Javier Balaguer wanted to make a denunciation of ill-treatment against women he should've filmed a documentary instead of this movie full of clichés, stereotypes, unreal dialogs and the awful performances of Paz Vega and Sergi Lopez. I didn't expect much of Vega, she's so bad -although no one seems to notice- but I've always liked Sergi Lopez and I must admit that his work in "Sólo Mía" leaves a lot to be desire. Maybe he was influenced -in a bad Way- by Paz, or maybe Javier Balaguer has not the faintest idea about actors direction.

So if you wanna see a decent movie about ill-treatment you'd better go and see Icíar Bollaín's "Te Doy Mis Ojos". That's a serious movie, and with top quality actors.

*My rate: 3/10

Domestic violence is perhaps more prevalent than one realizes. People caught in this situation often don't have the guts to confront reality and never leave the relationship soon enough to gain their sanity.

This film, directed by Javier Balaguer, was shown recently on cable and since it paired Sergi Lopez, perhaps Spain's best movie actor, and Paz Vega, got my attention.

The situation presented here is a study on how Joaquin, an up and coming advertising executive meets and falls in love with the lovely Angela. One can see from the beginning this relationship is doomed. Joaquin takes out all his frustrations on Angela and beats her up on many occasions until Angela walks out. The best part of the film is the surprising twist we witness at the end. We realize that justice works in mysterious ways, but it finally arrives and Angela is a winner.

Sergi Lopez is excellent as Joaquin. This actor has an intelligence that keeps amazing his fans from one film to next. Paz Vega is a beautiful, but resolute Angela. Elvira Minguez plays the pivotal role of Andrea, Angela's best friend, with conviction.