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It is difficult to describe House
of Sand and Fog, Vadim Perelman's debut feature, without
making it sound like a cross between jury duty and a trip
to the dentist. Who wants to see a movie in which a homeless
woman and an exiled Iranian Army officer struggle for possession
of a dilapidated beach house? Yet Steven Spielberg has said
that he co-founded Dreamworks Studios so that he could greenlight
films like this, and he can be proud that he did.
Adapted by Mr. Perelman and Shawn Lawrence Otto from a novel
by Andre Dubus III, the film opens with Kathy (Jennifer Connelly),
a recovering alcoholic, being improperly evicted from her
house by the County for non-payment of business taxes. The
house is immediately bought for next to nothing by former
Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley), who plans to
sell it at a profit to finance the college education of his
son, Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout).
By the end of act one we have understood that Kathy is headed
for a breakdown, and that Behrani, who has been doing manual
labor while keeping up a lavish front till his daughter marries,
desperately needs this deal to get back on his feet. To make
matters worse, Lester (Ron Eldard), the deputy sheriff who
evicted Kathy, has fallen for her and wants to play white
knight.
Mr. Perelman forces us to continually revise our estimate
of his characters. We side with Kathy and her handsome hero
against the stiff-necked Behrani until we learn more about
him. Then our sympathies shift and keep shifting, until we
find ourselves feeling for everyone who is caught up in this
infernal machine. The fact that one set of antagonists are
Iranian immigrants adds a strand of contemporary relevance
to the tale, but does not limit its complexities.
Unfolding like a thriller, the film also keeps us guessing
about each new twist on the road to catastrophe. For once,
however, it would not be overreaching to use the word tragedy.
Greek tragedies were built around conflicts between two "rights"
which could only be resolved by the advent of a deus ex
machina, and in this film no marketing focus group descends
from the flies to make things turn out for the best. The searing
final image that results is one no spectator is likely to
forget.
Ben Kingsley inhabits Behrani's skin to perfection, while
Ms. Connelly more than holds her own in a difficult role.
But the drama is anchored by the performance of Shohreh Aghdashloo,
the Iranian actress who played the battered wife of a corrupt
official in Gozaresh, an early film by the great
director Abbas Kiarostami. Fierily asserting her traditional
dominion within the walls of her home, tearfully yielding
to her husband's rage, and responding gently each time Kathy
lands on her doorstep like a wounded quail, Aghdashloo paints
a truthful portrait of a Muslim woman that is the closest
thing to a political statement to be found in this deeply
moving film.
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© Copyright Bill Krohn 2005. No part of this article
may be reprinted without permission of the author.
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