House of Sand and Fog (Vadim Perelman, 2003)
An abandoned wife is evicted from her house and starts a tragic conflict with her home's new owners.
Jennifer Connelly, Ben Kingsley, Ron Eldard
The IMDb writer uses the word 'tragic', which now means 'death', but used to mean the kind of thing discussed by Aristotle in his Poetics: characters suffering at the hands of implacable fate; catharsis for the audience. It's very difficult in these more secular times to write tragedy, but this is a good shot at it. It's a fine, artistic film—tho most of the key characters do in fact die, so it's a dismal story. The music is good, but there's far too much of it, the acting is OK, especially that of Ben Kingsley of course, and the cinematography, by Roger Deakin, is excellent. Three Oscar noms.
Garry Gillard | reviews | New: 20 May, 2017 | Now: 21 May, 2017