Alone (1999)

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Basically a feminist tinted story of a lower class rural woman living in urban setting.Maria a single 35 year old hardened from an abusive father has moved to a city where she works as a maid. Her very traditional mother comes to town when her father has a serious operation. The mother Rosa stays with her--their estranged lives coming together. A elderly neighbor becomes important.The characters while a little ideal for instance the Mother Rosa is a bit of a saint--and the neighbor a little too good to be true are none the less very engaging and come to life.It is an enjoyable character study. You will remember these characters and like them especially the mother Rosa and the elderly neighbor.Recommmend. Fun for the Spanish setting as well.

Solas (1999)A purely effective entry into the private worlds of several very lonely people in contemporary Spain. Tenderly filmed, acted with understated and honest passion, and written in a way that makes you believe it. And that's the point. You really care about first the lonely old woman, then increasingly about her troubled daughter, and finally about the old man who is a neighbor living alone. What some people need, other people need to give. But they don't always know it, or if they know it they still resist, trapped by promises made or by convention.It's an interesting dose of reality that there are a couple of truly bad people here, as well, both men, both abusive in different ways to their woman. One, an older man in the hospital, remains bitter even as his health declines, and he reveals in a key passage that what he cares about is whether he was the kind of man society and tradition had expected him to be. Nothing else. It's sad, but not as tormenting as the younger selfish man who almost glories in his selfishness.What makes the movie strike deep, though, is how the women put up with this. We aren't sure if it is because they too are caught up in society's traditions, or if they have some emotional need to be abused, however that gets started. But what we are sure of is how familiar this sounds--if not in our own relationships, at least in those around us, somewhere.As powerful as this movie is, it is never overpowering, and never sentimentally driven (until, alas, the very end, which is a disappointing but understandable wrap up). What works so well is how subtle the emotional highs and lows are. It's all written and directed by people who understand what is going on in life, beyond the deceptions of the silver screen.

A very touching movie. During the movie you almost start wondering if there are only sad people around. But even the saddest ones (and they now, because they have had a fight about who the saddest one was) can shift to a better life.

Nowadays it is not so easy to find a film that hits directly your heart and sentiments. Benito Zambrano gives an opportunity to recover all those sentiments that are well hidden in your subconscious.Carmona is a small town too close to Seville to have a real identity and is the frame for a difficult and impossible relationship between a daughter, mother and father. Zambrano shows how difficult is to grow up in this outcast and bit farmer town with the leit-motiv of these three characters that join back together due to the father's illness. The father is marked rude and impolite, used to hit the wife or the daughter to show his total dominance and authority. The wife was totally subjected to this situation and the opportunity to find some understanding and heat with their neighbour is accepted with detachment by her. This side relationship with a lonely man brings back love to this sad and destroyed family. The daughter is even worse, alcoholic and in love with a truck driver who does not care of her pregnancy.The loneliness of the void with a breach of optimism is well expressed in this simple but very effective and straight film.Rating: 7/10