Tuesday, May 18, 2004
DVD Review: House of Sand and Fog
I hate to use the word "great" with this film. Truthfully, I've had a hard time coming up with any description that appropriately describes this film.
Powerful? Perhaps. Poignant? Certainly, depending on the viewer.
HoSF paints a bleak picture. Its tale of perseverance doesn't capture the triumph of the human spirit, but rather the destruction caused by self-centric behavior. There are no heroes in this story, no redemption and no happy ending.
Jennifer Connally plays a recovering alcoholic, whose has lost both her father (death) and her husband (abandonment) in the past year. Ben Kingsley stars (and I mean stars -- his performance ranks among the best I've seen in quite some time) as former colonel in the Iranian army, now searching for the American Dream.
In her battle with depression, Connally shuns correspondences that lead to the county mistakenly re-possessing her house -- the house her father left her. Kingsley, who has worked night and day to save money, quickly buys the house, and from that point a struggle ensues to claim ownership.
Ron Eldred completes the triangle of disfunctionals, as a deputy sherrif with marital problems, who ultimately serves as the catalyst that destroys the lives of everyone involved.
HoSF creeps along at a slow pace, but even with my short attention span, it never lost my interest. Director Vadim Perelman, in his first feature film, develops his characters gradually and subtley, chronicling each one's descent. He also uses imagery of the thick, rolling fog to create an ambiance of despair.
The amazing thing is that Perelman takes this rather inane plot -- people's lives ruined because of a house -- and makes the house immaterial. It's not the house that drives their irrational behavior, it's their own pettiness: greed, selfishness, condescension.
In the end it all culminates with a heartbreaking episode that leaves only one question: Was a house worth this much pain? The answer? Of course not. But like most of the themes in HoSF, that just illustrates yet another dark aspect of human nature: the consequences of our actions are often realized too late.
9/10
|
Powerful? Perhaps. Poignant? Certainly, depending on the viewer.
HoSF paints a bleak picture. Its tale of perseverance doesn't capture the triumph of the human spirit, but rather the destruction caused by self-centric behavior. There are no heroes in this story, no redemption and no happy ending.
Jennifer Connally plays a recovering alcoholic, whose has lost both her father (death) and her husband (abandonment) in the past year. Ben Kingsley stars (and I mean stars -- his performance ranks among the best I've seen in quite some time) as former colonel in the Iranian army, now searching for the American Dream.
In her battle with depression, Connally shuns correspondences that lead to the county mistakenly re-possessing her house -- the house her father left her. Kingsley, who has worked night and day to save money, quickly buys the house, and from that point a struggle ensues to claim ownership.
Ron Eldred completes the triangle of disfunctionals, as a deputy sherrif with marital problems, who ultimately serves as the catalyst that destroys the lives of everyone involved.
HoSF creeps along at a slow pace, but even with my short attention span, it never lost my interest. Director Vadim Perelman, in his first feature film, develops his characters gradually and subtley, chronicling each one's descent. He also uses imagery of the thick, rolling fog to create an ambiance of despair.
The amazing thing is that Perelman takes this rather inane plot -- people's lives ruined because of a house -- and makes the house immaterial. It's not the house that drives their irrational behavior, it's their own pettiness: greed, selfishness, condescension.
In the end it all culminates with a heartbreaking episode that leaves only one question: Was a house worth this much pain? The answer? Of course not. But like most of the themes in HoSF, that just illustrates yet another dark aspect of human nature: the consequences of our actions are often realized too late.
9/10
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