Clara Sola
Costa Rican/Swedish director Nathalie Álvarez Mesén tweaks the coming-of-age genre in her feature film debut, Clara Sola.
Unlike in most such movies, Clara (played by Wendy Chinchilla Araya) is older, a 40-something-year-old woman from a small Costa Rican village. She’s different, mysteriously different.
Her mother (Flor María Vargas Chavez) has overly sheltered Clara because of her severely curved spine, but also because of Clara’s ability — thanks to a vision of the Virgin Mary — to heal others, though apparently not herself.
Clara’s monotonous, lonely life is thrown into turmoil when a young man, Santiago (Daniel Castañeda Rincón), arrives to take care of her horse. Santiago is quickly attracted to Clara’s 14-year-old niece Maria (Ana Julia Porras Espinoza), which fires Clara’s repressed sexuality.