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UNCERTAIN
FOUNDATIONS : HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG
by
Neil Young
American films
about property-disputes usually revolve around large, impressive mansions
– see Cold Creek Manor for the most recent (absurd) example. So
it’s refreshing to find that the ‘house’ referred to in the portentous
title of House of Sand and Fog is a relatively modest, pokey bungalow.
Its location in an evocatively atmospheric corner of San Francisco is
a plus, but the structure itself isn’t anything special. What matters
is what the house represents: dignity, a link with the past, and
the possibility of a better future for its owner.
The feuding
parties are Kathy Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly), a recovering alcoholic eking
out a living as a house-cleaner, and Massoud Behrani (Ben Kingsley), an
Iranian colonel who fled to the USA
with his family during his homeland’s Islamic revolution of 1979. Originally
owned by Kathy’s father, the house passes to Behrani due to a combination
of her fecklessness and some bureaucratic bungling by the local authorities.
Having married off his daughter Soraya (Navi Rawat) Behrani moves in with
his wife Nadi (Shohreh Aghdashloo) and teenage son Esmail (Jonathan Ahdout).
He obtained the property for a song at auction, and it’s his intention
to renovate the slightly dilapidated dwelling and sell it off for a healthy
profit. But Kathy refuses to accept what she sees as an injustice, enlisting
the help of a local Deputy Sheriff, the seemingly well-meaning Lester
Burdon (Ron Eldard). This turns out to be the latest in a long line of
mis-steps by the hapless Kathy, and the consequences are disastrous for
all concerned...
The humble
scale of Kathy’s abode isn’t the only surprising and commendable aspect
of House of Sand and Fog – a film which intriguingly juxtaposes
hard-working, family-centred immigrants with dysfunctional, out-of-control
‘native’ Americans. The script (by director Perelman and Shawn Otto, based
on Andre Dubus III’s novel) takes unusual care to explore the legal and
financial specifics of the situation: we’re told, for instance, exactly
how much Behrani bought the house for, and how much he’s willing to accept.
At times this attention to realistic detail is reminiscent of Aussie Bill
Bennett’s unexpectedly engrossing semi-documentary treatment of a notdissimilar
situation in Mortgage (1989).
Until, that
is, the plot disappointingly descends into a final half-hour of unwelcome,
implausible, thriller-style histrionics and ostentatiously depressing
‘twists.’ Critics have identified House of Sand and Fog as part
of a ‘post-9/11’ wave of tragic, downbeat adult dramas – alongside the
likes of Mystic
River and 21
Grams (and, on a smaller scale, Fear
X). These films explore heavyweight issues of grief and guilt,
their seriousness bolstered by the efforts of their high-calibre cast
– but all, to some degree, undermined by their plots’ reliance on coincidence
and contrivance, and the inability of their scriptwriters and directors
to strike the right balance between tragedy and melodrama. (At least 21
Grams applied an original execution to its overwrought story – like
Mystic River, House of Sand and Fog takes a standard Hollywood
approach to what is, in fact, slightly non-mainstream material.)
 One
could argue that any film which presents the only slightly degalmourised
Connelly as a ex-alcoholic cleaning-woman was never on speaking terms
with plausibility (cf. Halle Berry in Monster’s
Ball and Nicole Kidman in The Human Stain) but Connelly’s
unsuitability is counterbalanced by the contributions from Kingsley and
Aghdashloo. While Kathy emerges as an off-puttingly unsympathetic ‘heroine’
– the borderline-racist Lester is even less appealing – Behrani and his
wife, though not exactly unimpeachable themselves (Behrani is stubborn
and autocratic; both prospered under the Shah), develop as compelling
layered and nuanced characterisations. Both actors have been widely –
and rightly – praised, with Aghdashloo working wonders with relatively
limited screen-time and her character’s uncertain grasp of English. Her
huge Bette Davis eyes are a major help, of course – the heartbreaking
expression on her face in her final scene, when she takes tea with Behrani
as they look out from ‘their’ house at the sea view, justifies her Oscar
nomination on its own*.
By this stage,
things have already gone very badly for Nadi, Behrani, Kathy and everyone
else – a grim state of affairs signalled around the half-way stage, when
Perelman cuts from a happy Behrani announcing “We are blessed!” to a shot
of a desolate, shadowy birdbath as rain starts to fall. James Horner’s
score unleashes an unmistakeably doomy chord - subtle, it ain’t. Director
Perelman is guilty of trying much too hard with his first feature – there
are several instances of that most hackneyed of ‘dramatic’ amped-up visual
cliches, the infamous “rushing clouds.” And he has ace British cinematographer
Roger Deakins (The Man Who
Wasn’t There) shoot and light most of scenes like they’re from
a horror film: specifically, from John Carpenter’s similarly northern-Californian
The Fog.
Such overcooked
theatrics are presumably intended to distract us from the numerous plot
holes – what happens, for example, to Kathy’s mother? Part of the reason
Kathy is so keen to recover the house because her mother has announced
she’s going to pay a visit “in two weeks.” This McGuffin is conveniently
forgotten about later on, apart from a brief mention towards the end,
when we realise with a jolt that events which seem to have taken place
over weeks and months must have in fact occurred over the course of only
a few days. The time-frame just doesn’t feel right at all – and nor does
the climax, in which Behrani’s drastic actions make little sense when
we remember (the unseen) Soraya’s continuing existence. The audience isn’t
supposed to dwell on such details, of course – Perelman and Otto intend
us to stagger, shattered from the cinema, weighed down by the tragic inevitability
of it all. Medicine that leaves this grim a taste, the idea goes, must
be beneficial.
29th February,
2004
* Ironically
enough, for a film which has racism as one of its themes, Aghdashloo’s
name doesn’t feature on the posters for House of Sand and Fog on
either side of the Atlantic. In the opening credits, she’s scandalously
listed after both Frances Fisher and Kim Dickens, whose roles are
much briefer and more tangential.
by Neil
Young
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