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Film Fare...with Mark Moorehead
The House of Sand and Fog

Movie theater marquees are so jam-packed with titles during the holiday season that one can easily miss a film worthy of its own movie house far from the madding crowd.

House of Sand and Fog is such a film. Based on a best-selling novel published in 1999 by Andre Dubus III, House of Sand and Fog was heavily touted by Oprah Winfrey after spending weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. It’s an original modern day Shakespearean tragedy about three people on a collision course that proves inescapable because of their own individual dreams.

Russian-born director Vadim Perelman read the book on a plane ride across the Atlantic and instantly knew he needed to tell this story to a wider audience. Jennifer Connelly plays Kathy, an unemployed, recovering alcoholic living alone. Kathy is so deeply depressed she ignores her mail and walks around her bungalow in a fog until the police come to evict her for non-payment of taxes. Her house is put on the auction block and sold to Behrani (played by Ben Kingsley), an Iranian exile living in the U.S.

Behrani was once a well-respected colonel in the Iranian Air Force, living the good life until Islamic extremists took over his country. His pride has taken its toll after years working two menial jobs. He dreams of buying the bargain-basement fixer-upper house and selling it for a big profit so he can quit his jobs and drop the demoralizing façade of pretending to be a business executive.

The drama speeds up when Kathy’s lawyer finds out the county made a mistake and she never owed any back taxes. Unfortunately, Behrani has no intention of giving up the answer to his dreams that he purchased legally.

And, Kathy has no intention of allowing these foreigners to stay in her home one more night. The home is her security blanket, a family legacy handed down to her by her father and the only thing in the world she has. Her dream is to find a little happiness and a life without addiction.

With the slow wheels of justice grinding to a halt, Kathy gladly accepts an offer of assistance from Lester, a sympathetic police officer (played by Ron Eldard). Lester is in a loveless marriage, dreaming of true love in his new relationship with Kathy. There you have it: three flawed people dreaming while they’re driving and forgetting to put on the brakes before the car comes crashing into the house of sand. 

That’s probably not a metaphor Dubus or Perelman would approve of. Lucky for us, we had an opportunity to sit down with both Andre Dubus III and Vadim Perelman and ask them what the real message is in this film.

“I fell in love with an Iranian girl in 1978 and got to learn the Iranian culture through osmosis,” said Dubus. “

One image that gave birth to the whole novel was what her father said after working two shifts, one at gas station and one at a shoe factory. He was bringing groceries in and looked like he was about to drop. He was only 65 but he looked 80, and he looked off in the distance and said, ‘You know Andre, I used to work with kings and queens, presidents and vice presidents, prime ministers. Now I sell candy and cigarettes to children who don’t even know who I am. I just never thought that would happen.” 

Dubus was reluctant to discuss any underlying messages in the book, preferring that readers draw their own conclusions.

So I asked director Perelman why he thought the story House of Sand and Fog was perfect for him (hoping his version of the movie’s message might slip out unnoticed answering the question).

“I was an immigrant” says Perelman, “I came from the former Soviet Union when I was 15. We were refuges living in Rome. I was a street kid, wild, working two jobs trying to support my mother and learning English so we could go to America. Living on the streets of Rome I read books on park benches and on steps. Books were my life, more so than movies. Andre’s book moved me. And, it had so many parallels in my life.”

House of Sand and Fog is much more than an immigrant’s desperate effort to regain dignity and purpose. It’s a gripping story of rational people behaving irrationally when passion boils over and cultural stereotypes prevail.  Interestingly, it’s not a cultural clash that dooms the participants, but the underlying human need for a better life. This is one film that has Academy Award written all over it.

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