La soledad

An interesting Spanish drama with a double family story and experimental screen narrative that offers honest slices of reality.

The title of the film can mislead, as this is not a story on loneliness, but a bout family, traditional and non traditional. The first story, and my favorite, is the one of old widow Antonia -beautifully played by Petra Martinez- and her daughters, which depicts very realistically the sacrifices and self-abandonment of many mothers in Spain, who have lived their lives just trying to help their offspring and they are mistreated by them when they are old and fragile; the story is also a perfect reflection of the tensions, love, resentment, and backstabbing existing in many families. The story is straightforwardly told - "extroverted". The second, is the story of a grieving single mother, Adela -convincingly played by Sonia Almarcha-, who has lost her baby in an terrorist attack and has an unstable relationship; this story is full of silences and told in an introverted way as if we were Adela's neighbors , we knew her story but not what she's feeling and had to deduce that from what we see of her by watching her through her house windows. Although both stories are very different in mood and approach, they somewhat complement each other.

The movie has a semi-documentary style with a split screen, one of which is usually an empty space, a corridor, hallways and windows, that do not add anything to the story most of the time. I found that narratively unnecessary. On the contrary, the use of a still camera, with face frontal and/or lateral is very effective, as it helps to establish an intimate relationship with the character, to focus on the character and what is saying, to feel physically close to her.

The actors' heartfelt performances make the characters truly believable and real.

I did not like the beginning of the film, which looked as if you started to watch a home-made film half way its running. The ending was also disappointing and inconclusive.

A good movie overall, but a little pretentious.

The movie won three Goyas to the best film, the best director and the best new actor, among many other awards in Spain.

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.

The daily lives of a young single mother who just moved to Madrid from her native village and a widowed mother of three grown-up daughters. Through Adela (Sonia Almarcha) and Antonia's (Petra Martínez) lives, we have a glimpse of those brief moments of joy and sorrow common to anyone who lives in a big city. The movie is structured in four episodes ("Antonia and Adela", "The City", "The firm ground", "The background noise") and eventually an epilogue.

A weird , messy and tiring film , being carrried out by means of a disjoined realization in various disordered episodes . However, being a surprisingly affecting melodrama concerning the contemporary loneliness with a strongly unexpected emotional charge, whose highly stylized handling and lack of narrative actually bring out naturalistic performances from Petra Martinez and Sonia Almarcha , among others . It deals with a number of roles who intertwine in a spiral of distress , family secrets , loeliness , confrontation and death. Jaime Rosales tries out in this film the technique of splitting images or polivision, consisting of dividing the screen into two symmetrical halves that show two different points of view of the same scene. The moralizing character of Petra lies in the reconciliation of a paradox between a subject with dramatic potential and its form, which keeps the viewer at a distance and thus prevents their immersion in the diegesis. A non-linear, elliptical , untidy, narrative divided into chapters , directing attention to what is to come while leaving the dramatic events out of the picture, and gradually the stories will drive them all to the edge , while essentially focusing on the irreversible causal chain they create. In this messed up gap created between form and content, the performance of the actors is particularly surprising. It remains without excesses, while it is restricted. Director Jaime Rosales is always trying to find new ways of expressing his art and his technique, he may disconcert those who, having seen one of his films, think he can be classified in one category or another. Uncertain, slow, the movements of the camera also contribute strongly to the sobriety of this game: it moves in the manner of an individual, zooming in on the characters first captured in a general plan, then directing its attention to one, then the other , before focusing your gaze on a surrounding object or nature. Unfortunately for them, but luckily for those who are in search of authentic artists, One of his films can be in black in white, the next one will be in color. In one of his works the unordered dialogue will be almost inaudible whereas in the following one it will be as clear and significant as can be. At times he will favor fixed shots while at others tracking shots will be the norm. In some sequences the time will be stretched, in some others contracted. So, do not try to label Jaime Rosales, you are bound to fail. Simply because the man loves experimentation and whether one likes his body of work or not, it cannot be denied that he is is a sincere, demanding artist constantly renewing himself.

The motion picture was regularly and disorderly directed by Jaime Rosales. Born in Barcelona in 1970, Jaime Rosales is not the routine kind of filmmaker but an offbeat director who honors not only Spanish cinema as well as the world cinema. The future darling of film festivals paradoxically started by studying economics. But more passionate about the seventh art, he changed course and joined two different film schools, EICTV in Cuba first and then AFTRSBE in Sydney, Australia. He soon found himself directing, three shorts for starters, which would be followed by eight features, all selected and awarded in film festivals, one of which, 'La Soledad' , even proving a surprise public success. If, as I said, Rosales never makes the same film twice, he does have one recurring theme. Plus a sub-theme, the harmful effects of violence on the seemingly well ordered everyday life of people, generally described beforehand, minutely and... slowly. Which is best exemplified by his first effort, 'Las horas del dia' (2003), with its belated revelation that the main protagonist, whose ordinary daily life has been described in detail, is... a serial killer. Violence will later upset the characters of all of his films, that inherent in solitude and cancer in 'La soledad' (2007), the ruthlessness of an ETA commando in 'Tiro en la cabeza' (2008), the loss of a child' in 'Sueño y silencio' (2014). It is the brutality of society against young people that induces the couple of 'Hermosa Juventud' or ¨Beautiful Youth¨(2014) , here Rosales takes a Verite approach to an unfortunate couple attempting to make a porn movie which gives the movie an added layer of reality and he uses technology in an interesting and new way to mark the passage of time.

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.

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.