Review of House of Sand and Fog (2003) by Samuel D — 01 Jan 2008

"I miss my dad. He worked really hard for that house - it took him thirty years to pay it off, and it took me eight months to f--- it up.".

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***.

House of Sand and Fog deals with two characters. The first is Kathy (Jennifer Connelly) - wrongly evicted from her house by the County for non-payment of a tax-debt that was never hers. The second is Behrani (Ben Kingsley), an Iranian Colonel who fled to the United States with his family from Iran. When Kathy's house goes under auction by the County, Behrani purchases the house for well below cost - using the money he has saved from working two jobs. His plan is to fix the house up, sell it for a large profit, and then put his family back to the lifestyle they were accustomed to, and for which he has worked so hard to give them. Both Kathy and Behrani believe they own the house, triggering some pretty major emotional conflict, threats and violence.

There is genuine empathy on the part of the audience for both parties involved although personally, I found myself siding more with Behrani than Kathy. There is so much more to this film that I could mention, but not without including spoilers. This film deals with legal injustice, racism, corruption, family struggles and the needs and desires to create better lives. It is an emotional movie, bringing out frustration in the characters as the unorthodox situations they are in spiral helplessly out of control. It is the story of the failure of the legal-system and the failure of society.

In the research I did on Ukraine born, Vadim Perelman and this is the only film I can find listed under his name - which is a pity because House of Sand and Fog is a wonderful piece of work, so much so, that he won the Best Debut Director award by the National Board of Review (NBR). Kingsley's performance received him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor, while Connelly clearly displayed Kathy as being 'damaged goods' and brought about a nomination for Best Actress by the Broadcast Film Critics Association (BFCA). Iranian born Shohreh Aghdashloo also won four awards and was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role as Nadi, Behrani's wife - who for most of the film doesn't even speak English.

This film is drama, pure and simple - nothing has been sugar-coated to make it go down easier. I thoroughly enjoyed this film and look forward to watching it again.