The Sands of Time

The House of Sand (2005 DVD)
Directed by Andrucha Waddington
Brazil, 2005
In Portuguese with English subtitles

Brazilian import The House of Sand, a/k/a Casa de Areia in Portuguese, is an interesting meditation on time, dislocation and family that shouldn't be confused with that horribly overwrought U.S. film from a few years back called House of Sand and Fog. Although a couple of moments near the end didn't totally work for me, leads Fernanda Montenegro, Fernanda Torres and Seu Jorge were quite believable as three interconnected characters trying to find emotional shelter and sustenance on the sandy dunes of Maranhão state in the early 1900s. If the movie's epic ambitions overreach here and there, the same can't be said for the visuals; Ricardo della Rosa's sweeping sand and sea shots pack some of the same cinematographic punch as Lawrence of Arabia and Lucía y el sexo in terms of introducing a living landscape as an interactive canvas for the story. A nice riff on the strangers in a strange land theme. (www.SonyClassics.com)