Beyond the Multiplex

"The House of Sand": A household of women, lost in the dunes of 20th century art film
Veering 180 degrees in another direction, "The House of Sand," the second feature from Brazilian director Andrucha Waddington (after "Me You Them" in 2000), is striving for a grand, serious, pictorial timelessness. It's an impressive film, beautifully photographed and marvelously acted. But is it more than a set of undeniably gorgeous affectations? I can't decide; you'd better see it and make up your own mind.

Set in the impressively barren dunes of Maranhão, in the far north of Brazil, "The House of Sand" begins in 1910, when a group of white settlers arrives in the region and briefly attempts to build a village around a few shallow lagoons (in dry weather, they're more like puddles). These settlers are led by Vasco (Ruy Guerra), a patriarch in late middle age who is obsessed with the region and brutally dominates his young wife, Aurea (Fernanda Torres), and her mother, Donha Maria (Fernanda Montenegro).

Vasco soon meets a violent death as a result of his hubris, and the rest of the film follows Donha Maria, Aurea and Aurea's daughter, Maria (unborn at the beginning of the story), across six decades as they scramble to survive in Maranhão and intermittently try to escape. There are occasionally men in the picture, including Massu (Seu Jorge), the handsome grandson of a refugee slave, and Luiz (Enrique Diaz), a military officer passing through on an expedition. But mostly we've got the horizontal vastness of the sand and the equally handsome vertical figures of Montenegro and Torres, the real-life mother and daughter who are Brazil's leading actresses.

In effect, "The House of Sand" is a showcase for those two -- it was written for them -- and that may be more than enough reason for its existence. Montenegro is known best to American audiences for her Oscar-nominated role in Walter Salles' "Central Station," but it's Torres (who is also Waddington's wife) who is the real focus here. The film's long chronological arc provides both actresses with multiple roles: Montenegro first plays Donha Maria, Aurea's mother, then plays Aurea herself as a middle-aged and older woman, and finally plays Maria, Aurea's daughter, when Maria reaches middle age. Torres first plays Aurea as a young, sexually frustrated widow yearning to escape from the dunes, and then her daughter, Maria, as a promiscuous, rebellious adult.

"The House of Sand" is without doubt the most prestigious production to emerge so far from Brazil's booming film industry, and I have to say I have mixed feelings about it. As a languid, semi-erotic and almost wordless spectacle, it's highly effective. But almost everything in the picture, from the intense, slow-burn performances to the meticulous production design and the Spartan, unmusical soundtrack, feels borrowed and amalgamated from classic European and Asian art cinema. Think Antonioni and Kurosawa, with liberal dashes of "The Piano" and "Woman in the Dunes." Hell, there are worse things.

"The House of Sand" opens Aug. 11 in New York and Los Angeles, with a national rollout to follow.

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