A modern day Tragedy (House Of Sand And Fog (DVD))

Member Name: l-m-n-o-p

Product:	House Of Sand And Fog (DVD)
Date:	25/04/08 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Excellent performances, great atmosphere and tragic ending

Disadvantages: Gets a bit unbelievable in the last half hour

I don't remember why, but when House of Sand and Fog was released in 2003, I immediately liked the sound of it. Maybe it was the intriguing title, maybe it was because it has Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly in it, maybe because it's got an actress called Shoreh Aghdashloo in it (isn't that such a great name?) Whatever the reason, I've only just got round to watching it. Was it worth the wait?

Connelly stars as Kathy, a young American woman who wakes up one morning, only to find out that her lakeside bungalow is being repossessed because she's been ignoring her bills. She is forced to move, and the house is immediately put up for auction.

Meanwhile, Behrani, an Iranian immigrant (Ben Kingsley) is looking to make some money to support his family and so that he doesn't have to keep working low-paid jobs all the time. When he sees the house going, he snaps it up, hoping that by adding a balcony he can sell it on for four times what he paid.

However, Kathy and her lawyer are mounting a challenge to get the house back, claiming that the repossession was a mistake and that she doesn't actually owe any money. To help with this, she has the support of one of the police officers who evicted her (played by Ron Eldard). They've started seeing each other even though he's married with two children, and he's been helping her find a place to sleep in the absence of her house.

Naturally, Behrani will not give the house up lightly. He argues that he fairly and legally bought the house, and that he needs it to give his wife (Aghdashloo) and son a better life. As the pair become increasingly frustrated, tensions escalate and events spiral out of control, until eventually, one side will have to give way.

House of Sand and Fog is a modern tragedy, if ever I saw one. As events deepen and all the characters start to go too far in their battle for the house, you can tell that there isn't going to be a compromise or indeed a happy ending for both sides. And this is made all the more difficult by the direction of first timer Vadim Perelman - he presents both sides in almost equally neutral light. Neither the Iranian family or Kathy are totally clean or perfect, but nor does either deserve to lose out, so our loyalties are split, and the characters are sympathetic enough to keep the audience's interest. Well, apart from the policeman, he wasn't very likeable.

I found the film hard to take my eyes off for the first hour and a half - the tension just kept building up slowly and relentlessly, and this was helped by the fairly slow and artistic way the film is shot. Nothing feels rushed or forced, the characters are both given plenty of screen time, and the story is broken up by atmospheric and beautiful scenes of the surrounding landscape, including that foreboding fog of the title which shrouds the landscape.

However, the events of the last half hour spiral out of control a bit too much, or at least too suddenly. It does become slightly unrealistic, especially the parts of the story involving the policeman's actions, which were neither justifiable, sympathetic nor wholly convincing.

However, these events are still capable of emotional impact thanks to the excellent work that had been done to flesh out the characters. The performances from Kingsley and Aghdashloo were both Oscar nominated (Kingsley understandably, Aghdashloo perhaps less so in my opinion), and Jennifer Connelly knows by now how to do breakdowns - just look at her Oscar-winning performance in A Beautiful Mind for that - so she is as good as ever.

Meanwhile, a little bit of trivia for you - if you watched the fourth series of 24 you might get a feeling of déjà vu if you watch this. Shoreh Aghdashloo and Jonathan Ahdout (the son) both starred in that series, again playing mother and son! Now I know why they were so believable in 24; they'd already had practice!

Anyway, is House of Sand and Fog worth watching? Yes, it is, as long as you can do tragedy. It's not quite as bleak and devastating as Requiem for a Dream (jeez, Connelley knows how to pick 'em) but it is a little bit depressing, and rightly so. Sometimes you need a film to be bleak and realistic - life just isn't like a box of chocolates.

For his debut film, Perelman handles this very impressively, and he should be someone to watch out for the future. With excellent performances from Kingsley and Connelly, and a very good one from Aghdashloo, House of Sand and Fog is a slow-burning but gripping drama, marred only slightly by a bit of implausibility.
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House of Sand and Fog is available from www.sendit.com for the good price of £4.89.

Directed by: Vadim Perelman

Starring:

Ben Kingsley ... Behrani
Jennifer Connelly ... Kathy
Shoreh Aghdashloo ... Nadi
Ron Eldard ... Lester
Jonathan Ahdout ... Esmail

Classification: 15 (some violence/disturbing images, language and a scene of sexuality)

Running time: 126 minutes

Year: 2003

My rating: 8/10

Summary: Tragic, haunting and gripping