Solomon and Gaenor

I watched this poignant film after a week of slogging through the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and was happy to relax with a quiet simple story. Instead I found a riveting tragedy of a young couple in falling in love, and by doing so, breaking the rigid rules that held their different social orders together. The setting was South Wales in 1911, a turbulent time of changing social order. These was not the happy singing miners of "How Green Was my Valley", you knew that these miners had a desperately hard life.

Gaenor belonged to a proud chapel-going Welsh mining family holding together through hard times and strikes. Sundays were spent in the chapel where they accepted being publicly chastised for their transgressions.

Solomon was a Russian Jewish peddler whose family had fled persecution in Europe. When things got tough for the miners they would take it out on the small Jewish shopkeepers. The misalliance threatened and was unacceptable to both groups, who depended on sticking together for their survival. What was seen by the families as fleeting young love, was actually something much deeper and lasting, which ultimately led to tragedy.

Everyone in the film was well cast, especially Ioan Gruffudd who was excellent in the role of Solomon.

Solomon And Gaenor never lets you forget for an instant that this is a doomed romance. Unlike Shakespeare's version, there is no sympathetic character to offer a glimmer of hope to the young lovers. Rather the story takes its cue from its bleak setting in a Welsh mining town in 1911.

This is not to say, however, that the film is maudlin - it isn't. Rather the horrifying reality of Solomon and Gaenor's situation adds poignancy to their love. A delicate and intricately detailed dress that Solomon makes for Gaenor serves as a reminder that, like the dress, their relationship is too beautiful and fragile to last in such hostile surrounds. On a more technical note, the blend of languages (Yiddish, Gaelic, and English) works well, adding an air of authenticity without being self-conscious or knowing. The two leads, Gruffudd and Roberts bring a freshness and vitality to their roles that sidesteps any stereotypes. These are not Byronic figures, stalking moodily across a barren landscape. They are two people made happy by love in a dismal place.

I definitely recommend this film.

Being a Welshman, and one who lives in the locality where parts of this movie were filmed (I was lucky enough to be able to spend a couple of hours watching some of the filming in the village of Nantymoel, near my home), I guess I was always going to have a soft spot for this movie.

That aside, 'Solomon a Gaenor' is one of the few (if not only) film I've found that represents an accurate depiction of life in the coal mining valleys of South Wales - a hard, grim and pretty depressing time and place in many ways. The setting, story and performances (with Ioan Gruffudd and Nia Roberts outstanding in the lead roles) hits the nail squarely on the head and draw you into the bleak, harsh lives of the protagonists. The supporting performances are also top notch, with Maureen Lipman particularly impressive.

It was refreshing to see the native languages of the characters used throughout the film. I'm not a Welsh (or Yiddish!) speaker, but the added realism created by the use of these languages far outweigh the minor inconvenience of subtitles.

To answer a couple of points I've picked up from other Comments about this film on the site - firstly, the language is WELSH, not Gaelic. Secondly, there are variations of the Soundtrack available, with versions fully in Welsh and Yiddish (with English subtitles), and a more English based version.

This is not (thankfully) a movie that panders to base demands for a happy story, a happy ending or plenty of action. It is a very good, well made, well acted portrait of life in the valley's of South Wales in times past. Highly recommended for discerning movie goers.

Solomon and Gaenor is a film that sincerely captures the magic of the discovery of pure love, and also depicts so painfully what happens when ethnicism and hate work against it. I found so much of the film to be right on target with what people will do to make the "impossible" possible. There are so many forces at war in this movie: Truth versus deception; love versus hate; joy versus pain; sin versus virtue; ecstacy versus agony; and that's just a glimpse! I felt that I was not watching actors, but rather that I was part of the air surrounding the goings-on in these characters' lives. I was completely immersed in the story. Not only was the acting so on the mark, but the dialog was superb, the emotional struggle was palpable, and the lessons learned are as pertinent today as they were portrayed in this story set in Wales long ago. The story itself is truly a tragedy. The film, however, is magnificent.

I have never really understood why so many stories of "star crossed" lovers are always compared to Romeo and Juliet, which, fair enough, was about families at odd with each other, but, in my opinion, Solomon and Gaenor is so much more. A really sad story about bigoted people who are just perpetuating a centuries old hatred of people who are different to themselves. The supposedly Christian people who should practise what they preach and the Jewish people who will not integrate for fear of losing something of themselves in the process is the real dilemma of this story. Solomon and Gaenor are the ultimate losers in this harsh Welsh world of miner's strikes and religious bigotry in the early years of the 20th century when everything was seen as back and white and there was no place for shades of grey inbetween. More people should have the opportunity to see this film which, as far as I know, was never shown in cinemas in Australia and only consigned to a late night viewing time on a little watched TV station, as there is a lesson to be learned from this really well acted film .