Vadim Perelman's House of anti-Mirth.
Each character feels righteous and aggrieved-a genuinely modern sense of paranoia that Perelman (himself an immigrant) probably sees as part of the very climate of our experiment in democracy. Actually, anxieties such as these are as old as tribalism itself. But due to House of Sand and Fog's literary pretenses (based on a novel by Andre Dubus III), Perelman and cinematographer Roger Deakins create a sense of place overloaded with portentousness and doom.
Kathy, a spoiled Gen Xer, squanders her inherited luxury, and Behrani's displaced Iranian family constantly seeks to recover theirs. (Behrani's submissive wife Nadi, played by Shohreh Aghdashloo, spends time polishing a large silver platter, an Old World heirloom.) Perelman shows no ambivalence about what might be called American splendor; he's more interested in American shame. The fight between Kathy and Behrani-a brat and a tyrant-parallels them as insensitive capitalists. Their personal confusion is typified by a policeman, Lester (Ron Eldard), an unhappily married sheriff attracted to Kathy, whose troubles cast her adrift, reminding him of his own. ("I feel like I'm found," he says pathetically before initiating a shabby tryst-and leading Kathy back into alcoholism.) This young redneck is also an American version of Behrani, who had been a military strong-man for the Shah. Appalled by a foreign reflection of himself, Lester becomes involved in the moral/materialist skirmish, adding his own misguided anger and abuse of authority. At the climax, the characters' various madnesses are twisted into highly melodramatic irony-supposedly the irony of our times.
Maybe it's too soon after 9/11 to depict the U.S. through gloomy and fog-shrouded metaphor. Instead of capturing a feeling of bewilderment, the story plunges viewers into turmoil. It too quickly presents itself as a confirmation of our contemporary despair about local and global politics. (A hostage scene flips American-Iranian history in a fashion hysterical enough for a Clint Eastwood movie-although Eastwood did a similar scene much better in A Perfect World.) No doubt many Americans have pangs of futility-if not outright fear-in this Bush-and-Schwarzenegger political era, but House of Sand and Fog doesn't account for the moral imperatives by which Americans survive day by day or commonly pursue justice.
In order to support the title's stupid symbolism, Perelman downplays any behavior that shows stability and clarity. He avoids perseverance in the face of hardship-the true paradox of American struggle. There's no mistaking Behrani's put-down of lazy, spoiled Americans ("We're not like them") as a sentiment Perelman wants audiences to sheepishly accept. His lead trio are not just unflattering pseudo-archetypes but overly simplified editorial cartoon caricatures: Hippie-chick Kathy can't manage a normal day, martinet Behrani is on the verge of cracking from the pressure of his self-imposed social pretense and lawman Lester is incapable of keeping his pledges. The only irony I would credit in this story is its unfortunate resemblance to the dreadful In the Bedroom, which was based on a novel by Andre Dubus, Jr. These pére and fils nihilists both falsify the way people deal with disappointment, amping up resentment into murderous revenge. Their big revelation is the mess of modern immorality: Kathy's irresponsibility, Behrani's pride, Lester's foolishness.
The Dubus family's decadent Americana may have predated 9/11, but it sure fits in with the need some Americans have to feel bad about themselves-not simply their dread of being dispossessed but also their sudden xenophobia. (House of Sand and Fog demonstrates how shrewdly Hollywood can cater to all audiences, appeasing both liberal and conservative sensitivities.) However, contemporary caution about Muslim immigrants doesn't simply stem from fear but also from Americans' distrust in their own government. Perelman doesn't examine this at all. He sees Kathy and Behrani as equally right but uses Lester as the pivotal consciousness-a figure of ugly Americanism-who compels both parties into wrong. The world's greatest democracy can carry a lot on its shoulders, but this imprecise guilt is an unwarranted burden.
Perelman's gesture of liberal decency recalls the ethnic quandary Mira Nair explored in Mississippi Masala, in which a dispossessed Indian family encountered strange customs in the American South. But even that love story offered a richer clash between the global and U.S. histories its characters represented. Perelman's good intentions are made insufferable by his actors' superficial sincerity; each one applies admirable skill-palpable tears and disillusionment-to embodying a turgid thesis about the dysfunctional family of man. (This isn't a matter of decency so much as naive filmmaking-proven by the camera circling 360 degrees around Kathy while Behrani also loses his bearings.)
Basically an income-tax horror story, House of Sand and Fog is never as illuminating as that moment in Jim Sheridan's In America when the young Irish father, sweltering in a humid New York summer, is forced by an oft-robbed Puerto Rican store owner to come up with a few pennies to pay tax on an electrical adaptor for an air conditioner. The metaphors are simple, credible and the dramatic tension becomes simultaneously personal and political. One immigrant learns the life lessons of the other and says, "Thanks, Mr. American Dream."
Top Ten: 2003
It usually takes two years for the effect of real-life events to be felt in mainstream movies. Still, onscreen responses to 9/11 didn't make 2003 a good year for Hollywood, just a confused one. The best movie to address the way we live today, In America, depicted how humans respond to tragedy yet search for freedom. It garnered less genuine critical enthusiasm than the outright escapist fare.
Our world's troubles and the aftereffects of the West's colonialist history showed up in Lost in Translation, Dirty Pretty Things, Mystic River, The Last Samurai, Master and Commander, House of Sand and Fog and as degraded ersatz mythology in the final installment of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. These films displayed shameless political arrogance-and they weren't great shakes as filmmaking, either. For me, the year's best films epitomized moviemaking as a moral endeavor. Explicitly or unconsciously political, 03's finest brought politics and spirituality together.
1. Together by Chen Kaige examined art-making (music as movies) in terms of human responsibility. Chen's modernist craft gave rigor to the beautiful father-son-teacher sentiments. His combined cinematic and emotional flair was unequaled. Too bad so many took it for granted.
2. The Son by the Dardennes brothers. The story of a father in mourning who gets a new understanding of life and death-by counseling his child's killer. An uncanny social vision.
3. In America by Jim Sheridan. Treating street life as fable, Sheridan trusts audiences to recognize their need for faith.
4. Porn Theater by Jacques Nolot presents even naughty moviegoing as an effort to connect. Ignored by bigots, it was also the best meta-movie since early Techine.
5. The Company by Robert Altman. A lyrical view of loneliness. The first digital-video film actually worth looking at.
6. Divine Intervention by Elia Suleiman. Palestinian hopes, suffering and dreams. And funny.
7. The Good Thief by Neil Jordan. Rethinking Bob le Flambeur in ravishing color with a ravaged and awesome Nick Nolte.
8. Paradise: Omeros by Isaac Julien took the movie future to art galleries with an astonishing triptych evoking a black gay Brit's nostalgia and displacement.
9. Mondays in the Sun by Fernando Leon de Aranoa. As a laid-off worker looking to affirm his manhood, Javier Bardem brought soul to the notion of work as identity.
10. Phone Booth by Joel Schumacher and written by Larry Cohen. This neo B-movie satirized the crazy world of entertainment media. Colin Farrell, targeted by a sniper, suffers for our sins. Improper but important.