House of Sand and Fog - 7

I wrote about this film a year ago. My take then was that the film is a challenge to live differently. Seeing this film again made me realize different complexities and issues it deals with that I missed on first viewing. Without giving too much of the plot away, the story involves a house whose owner is evicted on a bureaucratic technicality. The house is then sold to an Iranian immigrant family who are looking to make money by buying low selling high (that is just good economics). Well if life was just economics this film wouldn't have anything meaningful to say. Fortunately life is complex and humans are able to understand their environments in meaningful ways. The main theme of the film is the pursuit of the American dream. The story points out the legalism of it, and ultimately how lonely and individualistic the pursuit of this dream can be (the tagline of the film is: "Some dreams can't be shared"). This film also explores the idea of home and the emotional ties that we have to places and people. There are some great lines in the film in which the characters talk about what it means to be lost in confusion and how happiness to them is to be found. The greatest lesson this film can teach is that if you can choose to show others grace, take it, otherwise you will be left callous and numb to caring for others.
The title works as a metaphor for the precariousness of human situations and communication. The questions are whether one can build anything that will last on a sand foundation, and whether people are able to really have eyes to see through the fog. Often times we overestimate our abilities to really know and love in lasting and faithful ways.
The film is based on the book by Andre Dubus III. He is very intelligent in writing about the complexity of the human experience especially the issues concerning the relations of Islam and American culture, and how subtle the interaction is between faith, lifestyle, and communication are. Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly give their best performances in this film. I would recommend seeing this film and thinking deeply about it.