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21 guide 12-18 Aug 2017 film

and light, prepackaged with

an intense emotional impact.

This might be the creepiness of

empty spaces in The Shining, or

the bittersweet remembrance

of faded glamour in the Maysles

brothers’ 1975 documentary

classic Grey Gardens. The

spectacle of hubristic skyscrapers

reclaimed by nature is usually

the most compelling reason to

watch apocalyptic sci-fi like Will

Smith vehicle I Am Legend.

But in Armand’s debut film,

the dilapidated building isn’t just

a visual metaphor; La Soledad is

real. Soon to be demolished, the

Caracas house of the film’s title

once belonged to the director’s

great-grandparents until it was

taken on unofficially by their

housekeeper Rosina. Many of the

characters play themselves and

while the action is dramatised,

the film’s basis in truth makes

the line between fiction and

reality as crumbly as

La Soledad’s masonry.

More to the point,

this particular decaying

mansion is haunted by both

the living and the dead.

The elderly Rosina

is still there, now living with

her grandson, José. We see him

queuing for hours to obtain milk

for his daughter, and in search of

scarce medication for his ailing

grandmother, just as millions

of Venezuelans are currently

forced to do. At a time when

foreign reporters are increasingly

unwelcome, Armand’s film serves

as an important record. But this

is a magical realism that sees no

easy solutions. In scenes bathed

in an eerie tropical twilight, José

searches for hidden gold that his

grandmother tells him is guarded

by the ghost of a murdered slave.

In the midst of their desperation,

this seems like the family’s most

realistic hope.

La Soledad recognises the

nostalgia that abandoned

spaces inspire, but is never

distracted from the more

immediate suffering of their ad

hoc occupants. In the context of

housing crises at home and

abroad, cinema’s empty

buildings have been filled

with new meaning 

La Soledad is out on Friday

Ellen E Jones

nline, they call it
“ruin porn”: a 2010s
photography trend
that has inspired gallery
exhibitions, clickbaity listicles
and academic theses with titles
such as The Anxiety of Decline.
Yet cinema’s fascination with
disused buildings, like the one in
the new Venezuelan feature by
Jorge Thielen Armand goes much
deeper. The dreamy La Soledad
manages to be as confrontational
and vitally political as a slasher
flick set in those unoccupied
properties near Grenfell Tower
would be.
Derelict buildings just look
great on film. Their dusty corners
and broken windows make for
an unusual interplay of shadow

fi lm

Why cinema’s use of

‘ruin porn’ is about

more than just eerie

window dressing

Ghosts in

the shell

O

ly as

sonry.

oint,

caying

ted by both

e dead.

na

housing crises a

abroad, cine

buildings h

with new

La Soledad i

Ellen E

Elegantly wasted Edie and

Edith in Grey Gardens;

(below) Rosina in La Soledad

fi lm

Elegantly wastedEdie and

Edith in Grey Gardens;

(below) Rosina in La Soledad