the leading man is my tpye

Let's be realistic.

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Benito Zambrano's Solas offers us a collection of stereotypes which are of little credibility and make of this film a hard and boring view. It is basically the account of a few weeks in the lives of some personages, in the particular circumstance that the father of a family is in hospital and his wife has to move to the city to stay with him. No hint of sensitivity, or even humanity, is to be found in the ogre- like personage of the father, of whom we know through patches of conversation that is alcoholic (a vice inherited by his daughter), violent, family abuser and wasteful. To this father's attitude, the wife and the daughter adopt completely opposite attitudes; totally submissive the wife, whom might well have been depicted with an aura of holiness around her head; rebel and contemptuous towards her father the daughter, who hates him undisguisedly. Social groups are portrayed under fixed stereotypes too: all affluent people are egoist, thoughtless towards others and bad; all poor people have a good heart, but life circumstances may make them behave not so honestly; all men are thoughtless, brute, women chasers, football lovers and sex-obsessed, but for one of the characters of the film, a neighbor which seems to share with the wife the gift of holiness; and all women are... well, they are a bit more fleshed out in the film and considered as individuals, rather than as a bulk indistinguishable from one another.I cannot recommend watching this film to anybody, but maybe for those whom may feel reassured in their convictions about human stereotypes in case they are coincident with those depicted in the film. Only one scene seemed to me of cinematographic value: when the daughter is watching through a passing train a bag lady carrying her trolley; as the different carriages pass by we can see in very short flashes the increasing expression of sorrow, desperation and realization of the bag lady desperate condition. Ana Fernández is fine in her role as the daughter.

Benito Zambrano's sincere, subtle and sublime 'Solas' tells a story of human dilemma and fragile relationships. The centre of the film are its key characters, Rosa (María Galiana), her daughter María (Ana Fernández) and her neighbour (Carlos Álvarez-Nóvoa) and their struggle with loneliness. All three are broken people. Rosa and María's lives have been fractured by their abusive father. The neighbour's life is fractured by his very loneliness. As their interactions build, no matter how they try to avoid not being alone, a bond develops. Themes of motherhood, abuse, abortion and oldage are presented but never exaggerated or preached.The description sounds familiar but Zambrano gives it a unique treatment especially through his characters. María may not be much of a talker at work. She finds distraction in alcohol and sex and otherwise she lashes out. Rosa in contrast is quiet and mostly keeps to herself but she's a gentle person who is kind enough to offers help. The neighbour obviously enjoys Rosa's company in his otherwise lonesome life and he looks forward to their meetings.The sets and locations are simplistic but efficient. The cinematography and score are also used efficiently contributing to the flow rather than intruding. The dialogues too are simple but very well layered, especially in the way the actors deliver them. María Galiana is excellently restrained. Her silence has a strong voice and her minimal expressions convey plenty. Ana Fernández plays her part with equal conviction. She wonderfully highlights the differences between Rosa and María. Equally outstanding is Carlos Álvarez-Nóvoa as the lonely neighbour, the kind of man people often see as 'just an old man' and then forget about as he goes back to his lonely apartment.Lastly, Zambrano ends 'Solas' beautifully. I will not reveal this because the whole story leads up to it in a subtle and lyrical manner that the effect of it will be lost if I said a word more.

Writer/director Benito Zambrano has delivered a brilliant observation of real situations in the lives of a broken family and lonely people who only want to feel useful again.It infuriates me that I cannot see this kind of film -- nothing even remotely approximating it -- from the Hollywood celluloid factory. Given over to LaLaLand, this would have been yet another throwaway melodrama drenched in its own soapiness. In Zambrano's hands, this low-budget gem eschews sentimentality and high-tech wizardry, digs deeply into characterization and shows us a view of the world we wouldn't know existed if we depended on Hollywood to show us. Zabrano's dialogue is just deadly accurate and very 'real'. The acting is uniformly superb, but Maria Galiana as the long-suffering, illiterate, sturdy Earth Mother is astonishing. She ambles on and off the screen with a weary, brilliant light. She has sacrificed her entire life in the service of a husband who doesn't deserve to lick her shoes. She does it because, well, that's the way it is for women of her generation.Carlos Alvarez-Novoa is equally brilliant as the the old neighbour who offers his considerable heart to the mother and to her pregnant-and-confused daughter Maria, beautifully played with passion and rage by Ana Fernandez.Both Galiana and Alvarez-Novoa give us faces and gestures of old and tired people who know too well the unfairness of life for the poor. There is a wonderful scene between the two when Alvarez-Novoa has an attack of diarrhea and Galiana insists on helping him. He resists, telling her he reeks of excrement. Galiana handles the situation as casually as she would the copious body wastes of the pigs she keeps back home in her native village. This tiny touch of humanity is the kind of scene one sees frequently in European films (and rarely, if ever, in flicks from Hollywood). Benito Zambrano has done a masterful job here. Like other politically conscious writers and directors working in Europe, he takes the reality of proletarian existence and makes it into something very real, all without sappiness. This is one terrific film.

A combination of an 'eye-opening' plot and superb acting make this film a wonderful piece of art and a powerful depiction of how some women led and perhaps still lead their lives today.This film can make you cry. I think this film deserves much recognition for such a moving drama.