Solas

A gem of movie from the Spanish director, Benito Zambrano, Solas won 5 Goyas(Spanish Academy Awards) and I'd say everyone of them was justified. It is the story about Maria, a 35 year old pessimist, part-time alcoholic who is employed as a part-time cleaner and her mother, a simple peasant woman who comes to stay with her daughter when her husband falls ill and is admitted in a hospital in the city(where Maria lives).

A moving story about two women, whose lives are always in crisis. Their lives, their relationships, the simple friendships they form in this fragile world is the fodder of this film. Solas means Alone, alone in their own lives as the world moves mercilessly around and ahead of them, this film follows three people(or four if you count the barman) - Maria(Ana Fernandez), her mother(Maria Galina) and their old neighbor, played by Carlos Alvarez-Novia and the bonds they forge in unconsciously makes the film poignant and etches it in to your hearts.