Mark Reviews Movies: CLARA SOLA

Clara Sola, Oscilloscope Laboratories

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 30, 2022

The story around this small village in Costa Rica goes that Clara (Wendy Chinchilla Araya) was visited and touched by the Virgin Mary. Since then, she has gained the power of healing, and while that's obviously a gift, Clara Sola sees the human reaction to this gift as a curse for the protagonist.

Clara is about 40 years old, and she lives with her mother Fresia (Flor María Vargas Chaves) and orphaned niece Maria (Ana Julia Porras Espinoza) in a remote part of the forest outside of town. Clara is withdrawn and repressed in multiple ways. Fresia has established a boundary around the house, marked by purple ribbons on posts, which her daughter is not allowed to cross.

If she has had any experience with romance or sex, it was so long ago that the only real knowledge she has of such matters comes from the shows she watches on television. There's an especially sad moment in co-writer/director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén's film when Clara asks the younger Santiago (Daniel Castañeda Rincón), who borrows the family's horse as a tourist attraction, if he would like to kiss like they do on TV. They're just paid actors, Santiago points out, so Clara asks if she should pay him.

Clara doesn't even have the freedom of exploring herself sexually. If her mother catches her daughter with her hands where they shouldn't be, Fresia covers Clara's fingertips in the pulp of chili peppers.

The screenplay, written by the director (making her feature debut) and Maria Camila Arias, follows Clara as she pushes those literal and figurative boundaries of her cloistered existence. Also making her debut, Chinchilla Araya's performance emphasizes that the character's quiet, internal nature is entirely the result of her circumstances, as well as communicating the well of awareness and empathy that Clara has, if not for the people who flock to her for miracles, for nature. Repeatedly, the film proves that there is some kind of magic to her, such as the way she resurrects a pet beetle or brings Santiago—who is carrying on a not-so-secret affair with Clara's niece but clearly feels something for the older woman—to tears when she whispers his "true" name into his ear.

The miracles are unimportant, except to prove just how much power Clara possesses, despite how powerless Fresia's upbringing and continued confinement has rendered her. Mostly, Álvarez Mesén's film is a discreet, reflective piece of realism—a study of a character who exists filled with pent-up urges, a growing sense of rebelliousness against her family and the faith of which she isn't certain, and all of the potential that no one wants her to realize.

It works, thanks to some fine performances. More than that, Álvarez Mesén brings a clear-eyed sense of the protagonist, her situation, and the assorted tensions brewing beneath the surface to Clara Sola, which tells a familiar story of searching for freedom with an engaging sense of both curiosity and compassion.

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