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04/21/07
House of Sand (2005)
79 %
Reviews Counted: 66 Fresh: 52 Rotten:14 Average Rating: 7.2/10
Consensus:
Beautifully filmed with wonderful performances, this Brazilian tale deftly explores the passage of time and prolonged isolation in several decades of a mother and daughter relationship.
Runtime: 1 hr 43 mins
Synopsis: Áurea's saga starts in 1910, when, in pursuing a dream she never shared, she arrives in a caravan at a labyrinth of sand in Maranhão, northern Brazil. Her husband, Vasco, believes this land to be prosperous and she is condemned to a life in this barren place, her only female company being her... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Fernanda Montenegro, Fernanda Torres, Ruy Guerra, Seu Jorge, Emiliano Queiroz
Director: Andrucha Waddington
Screenwriter: Elena Soarez
Story: Elena Soarez, Luis Carlos Barreto, Andrucha Waddington
Producer: Luis Carlos Barreto, Lucy Barreto, Walter Salles
Screenwriter: Elena Soarez
Story: Elena Soarez, Luis Carlos Barreto, Andrucha Waddington
Producer: Luis Carlos Barreto, Lucy Barreto, Walter Salles
Reviews
Both characters make gradual evolutions, but don't blame audiences if they're too dazed and dry-mouthed to notice.
11/09/06
...a part of a classic art-house tradition, that of the starkly beautiful yet chilly movie that haunts the memory without compelling any particular attention.
11/03/06
House of Sand boasts the hypnotic power of its landscape and a pair of powerful and passionate performances by Montenegro and Torres.
10/28/06
A devastating yet beautiful film from Brazil, House of Sand tells an epic story of love and desolation.
10/27/06
At once allegorical and grimly naturalistic -- a contemplation of the sands of time set amid the drifting dunes of Brazil's unforgiving Maranahao desert.
10/13/06
Evocative as it can be, House of Sand doesn't have enough story or incident to justify the investment in time.
09/29/06
The dramatic and often sad lives led by the women yield surprisingly intimate dramas considering such limitless surroundings, a contrast that's played up by the excellent cinematography.
09/28/06
Cinematographer Ricardo della Rosa ... has created images of rare beauty in the midst of terrain so spectacularly strange that it sometimes seems to speak a language all its own.
09/22/06
It is a wondrous place, almost of another planet, and more than compensation for the effort to get there.
09/22/06
Visually dazzling, epic in its sweep and deeply romantic in its sensibility, The House of Sand is one of those films whose images and ideas linger long after the lights come on, having been burned into the viewer's consciousness.
09/15/06
[Waddington] is bothersomely casual with the time-jumps and never makes their long survival quite believable.
09/15/06
A visual work of art and its simple story moves as effortlessly as the sands in a forsaken desert in northern Brazil.
09/15/06
It ends up like an impressionist painting without a subject, one we stare at longingly, waiting for its purpose to emerge.
09/15/06
The thrill of seeing this movie is in the realization that we've seen nothing like it before.
09/14/06
Sensual, dreamlike, both intimate and epic, The House of Sand is a cinematic tour de force.
09/08/06
The movie has a power that's as hard to firmly grasp as the stuff on which these women build their home.
09/08/06
Both Waddington and Soarez understand the impotence of words in this dusty setting, or the potency of just the right ones.
09/08/06
Related Forums
Andrucha Waddington's HOUSE OF SAND pushed back to August 11, 2006 in NYC & LA!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
Andrucha Waddington's HOUSE OF SAND pushed back to August 11, 2006 in NYC & LA!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
Andrucha Waddington's HOUSE OF SAND pushed back to August 11, 2006 in NYC & LA!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
Andrucha Waddington's HOUSE OF SAND pushed back to August 11, 2006 in NYC & LA!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
by: REEL_REVIEWER 2/2/07
Andrucha Waddington's HOUSE OF SAND will open July 28th, 2006 in NY & LA!!!
by: REEL_REVIEWER 6/19/06
by: REEL_REVIEWER 6/19/06
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