| House of Sand and Fog | | Cast : | Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard | | Director : | Vadim Perelman | | Studio : | Umvd/Dreamworks | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, Widescreen | | Released Date : | December 26, 2003 | | DVD Released Date : | May 31, 2005 | | Language : | English (Dubbed), French (Subtitled), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 03, 2005 | | Summary | DISAPPOINTING! | Content
 | A friend of mine recommended this movie to me. He told me this
movie was great. Needless to say, I'll never listen to him
again! The first hour was so boring, I almost shut it off. The
second half just kept getting more, and more stupid.(SPOILER)
There was no need for the boy to get shot and killed, and for
the father to kill himself. With these things added to the
movie, it still sucked! THANKS MARC! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 31, 2005 | | Summary | Sadistic and ugly... | Content
| Well, if your idea of entertainment is to watch a lot of possible ways of commiting suicide, then this is a good movie... |
| Rating | | | Date | July 25, 2005 | | Summary | Fine effort with crfitical consciousness. | Content
| As a somewhat snobby Part time graduate film student I usually think that Hollywood films are at best flawed and dumbed down and at worst propagandist bs.
HOSAF is different. No protypical hollywood happy ending, no techo-deus ex machina's; fits more in grand pre-1980 European/World/Art cinema framework except that the content is quite contemporary.
Dreamworks stuff is generally an aesthetic cut above the "here today gone tomorrow" Hollywood fare. The photogarphy and the sound (I'm not talking about a compendium of recent or "classic" rock pop fare that has mininimal relation to the film)) is stunning.
The story of the fight for house and land is almost imperialism in reverse at a micro level. Both Kingsly and Connely are victims of their separate reqimes: Kingsly of the fall of the Shah of IRAN; Connolly victimized by local, inefficient, government (and both,in their own ways, are damaged and a bit delusional) Is this represetative of a culture clash of immense symbolic meaning? Yes and no? We live in a paranoid, pluralistic often malfunctioning culture. That, as the movie slyly displays, often devolves to nothing better than a police state. I could continue on this line of reasoning ad nauseuam, but it's probably more appropriate elsewhere.
Vadim Perelman's work is exceptional. His natural symbolism, his
creation of building intensity, and his character development/dissolution are all first rate.
Yes this is still box-office Hollyood Entertainment, but raised to a new level. Hopefully this movie stays with the viewer
when the lights com back on.I wouldn't be writing this if it didn't for me
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| Rating | | | Date | July 24, 2005 | | Summary | If you like drama, this is where it's at! | Content
| I kept hearing about this film from family and friends, on and on for a few months now, so I finally decided to sit down and watch it. Boy, was I surprised.
At the start of the film we meet Cathy (Jennifer Connelly), who is obviously a depressed individual. She receives a phonecall from her mother, who, like typical moms, wants to know if everything is OK. Cathy says everything is fine, it's early, she's tired, yada yada, and when asked how "Nick" is, Cathy says he's right next to her, he's fine and hangs up. The only problem with that statement is that Cathy is alone in the bed and now we know she's lied, but the question is, why?
From the second that Cathy gets out of the bed until the very end, we see a lonely shell of a woman whose depression has caused her to lose the very thing she needed to concentrate on most: her pride.
Cathy hasn't opened her mail for months, if that. It's obvious that something has happened to this "Nick" person and then there's a knock at the door and her entire world comes crashing down around her. She's being evicted for failure to pay back taxes on a business she claims she doesn't have. Even that is a lie because she does, technically, own a business. She does housecleaning and that, as far as the county is concerned, is a business but the movie doesn't flesh that out too much.
All we know is that Cathy appears unemployed and is a seemingly innocent victim who has been unfairly penalized by a county government and miles of red tape. We come to find out, however, that all of the unfortunate circumstances that Cathy is about to find herself in could've been avoided had she just opened her mail.
In helping her vacate the premises, the local Deputy Sherriff, takes an interest in Cathy and her welfare. He arranges for a moving company to come to help her get out and consistently checks up on her. She's grateful for the attention and goodwill but is becoming increasingly unhinged at the thought of losing a house that belonged to her family for so long.
Then the house goes up for auction and an Iranian family moves in. In this part of the story, we meet Massoud (Ben Kingsley) who, out of sheer necessity due to the Shah's death, has moved his family to the US just to survive. Unfortunately, Massoud, a former Irani colonel, is used to living a life of luxury in Iran that he's going to go for broke to get in the US. He is working two, perhaps three, jobs just to make ends meet and lying to his extended family by appearing to work in some upper class job. We don't know what that job may be but we see that by the end of the day as a construction worker, he visits a parking garage bathroom to wash up and change into a suit before going home.
There are a lot of parallels between Cathy and Massoud. She's upset she lost the house she grew up in for basically failing to open her mail, and Massoud is upset he lost his house in Iran where his children grew up and has failed to provide what he may feel is a proper life for them in the US. Where one has forgotten her pride, the other has a great deal of it and will do anything to uphold it.
The entire story centers on Cathy trying to get her house back from the county that, she feels, unjustly sold. Massoud, in the meantime, purchased the house for a fraction of what's it worth and is looking to turn it around for a profit so he can pay off the staggering debt he's acquired while living in the US and to send his son to college. Both of their respective families are unaware of what's really going on.
Cathy's family believes she's still in the house her father purchased for them so many years before and Massoud's family believes the house is just an investment property before they are to move to more upscale digs.
Complications arise when Cathy repeatedly confronts Massoud and his wife. The Sherriff's Deputy is added to the mix because in checking up on Cathy, he comes to find out that she is desperate to regain ownership of her house and he decides to throw his weight around with Massoud to see if he'll convince him to sell it back to the county.
In one bad choice after another, the story finally comes to a shocking conclusion. In trying to get her house back, Cathy never realized that her behavior, although justified in her opinion, could have such dreadful consequences.
Not only does she ruin the Deputy's life, but she manages to destroy Massoud's as well and at the end, when she's sitting there alone, smoking a cigarette and reflecting on the events that led her up to that point in time, she's asked a question that, until then, had never given her any pause.
She's asked "Is this your house?"
And for once in her life that we've only been shown a surprisingly short amount of, Cathy tells the truth.
The moral of this story, at least for me, is, to take pride in and cherish what you have because you never know when the things you love the most will be taken away from you.
And sometimes, the things you love the most aren't material possesions but your sense of self respect, your pride, and your ability to be responsible even when faced with remarkable difficulty and despair. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 09, 2005 | | Summary | Is this your house? | Content
| At first, I thought 'House Of Sand And Fog' would be a rather drawn out and boring movie, a sort of touchy-feelie film that I may admire but not necessarily enjoy. I was happily wrong.
House Of Sand And Fog is a drama that blooms with carefully orchestrated, subtle suspense, and carries with it the slight reek of prejudice. Who would you trust to be honest and fair? A Muslim Iranian family? A recovering, unemployed addict? A police officer? And just what type of greed would you consider to be the worst type?
Kathy (played by extremely talented Jennifer Connelly-Labyrinth, Requiem For A Dream) is a recovering addict, recently inheriting an older but cozy house from her father. However, the county mistakenly believes that she owes business tax and repossesses her property, leaving her homeless. Kathy is helped out by Officer Lester Burdon (played by Ron Eldard-Ghost Ship), who gives her an attorney's phone number and helps her pack her things.
Colonel Massoud Behrani (played by the incomparable Ben Kingsley-Suspect Zero, Schindler's List, Sneakers), an Iranian immigrant, finds the house listed for sale by the county and quickly purchases it. Behrani has spent every penny earned at working several jobs to ensure his daughter was married into a suitable family. Now he must see to his son's college, and dreams of fixing up the old house and making enough profit for his son's future.
Kathy hires an attorney to get her house back, but Behrani will not sell back to the county for less than four times the amount he paid for it. When Kathy sees that the law moves too slow, she confronts the Behrani's in an attempt to appeal to their sense of justice.
In the midst of her conflict with the Behrani's, Lester continues to take more than a casual interest in Kathy, to the point of leaving his wife and children to start fresh with her. How far will Lester and Kathy go to get back what rightfully belongs to her? Is Colonel Behrani an evil man or a victim himself? You will find that things are not always how they first appear, and will be holding your breath by the time House Of Sand And Fog reaches its surprising and powerful finish.
The lines between good and evil are thin and silvery gray in this exceptional dark tale of misguided intensions and ill-gotten gains. The photography is virtually stunning, the script tight, the acting above spectacular, and the emotion all too real. Special mention goes to actress Shohreh Aghdashloo who plays Nadi Behrani, and to Jonathon Ahdout who plays Esmail Behrani. Their superior supporting roles created a truly believable family with the Behranis.
Don't think for one minute that House Of Sand And Fog is your usual, uninspired drama. This is a dark journey into the heart, touching those black spots that leak poison inside all of us. Definitely worth a purchase. Enjoy!
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