Solas

In an impressive and unsentimental way, in his prize-winning début Solas Zambrano shows a few days in the life of a mother and daughter who have been alienated from each other, but are forced to seek rapprochement. The mother (beautifully played by María Galiana) lives with her tyrannical husband on a farm in a small village. When her husband is taken into hospital in Seville, she moves in with her daughter María. The introvert María is not happy with the visit, because she does not have her life organised at all: she has to survive on a pittance as cleaner, the has a drink problem and she’s been made pregnant by a loveless trucker. She is so resentful of her father that she doesn’t even want to visit him in hospital. María’s mother makes friends with the downstairs neighbour, an elderly man who lives alone with his dog. In her irrepressible attempts to make life blossom, she buys plants and knits an enormous collection of sweaters and baby cloths. In the meantime, she lets her husband curse her in the hospital. His bad temper has unfortunately been passed on to his daughter, as she remarks herself. While the neighbour treats her better than her husband, the old woman knows she will eventually return to her village. But it is not too late for María to change her life.