Evanston: The House of Sand
Evanston: The House of Sand
THE HOUSE OF SAND is not our condo, despite the shade I painted the walls, but an outstanding Brazilian movie directed by Andrucha Waddington released in the U.S. last year. I got it from Netflix.
The story covers the years 1910 to roughly 1970 and relates the lives of three generations of women, grandmother, mother, and granddaughter, who are played by two actresses, who are in real life mother and daughter. Although the acting is excellent, the movie is dominated by the cinematography and the almost lunar landscape. This is not the lush tropical Brazil I know, but a barrenness of sand dunes found in Maranhao in the northeast of the country.
In 1910 a man leads a band of settlers, including his wife and her mother, into this wilderness. Soon the others settlers leave, and he is killed in an accident. The women survive with the help of runaway slaves, who have heard that slavery has been outlawed but are unwilling to return to find out in case this is not true.
In 1919 an expedition of scientists appears to photograph stars during a solar eclipse. You hear enough to know that they are trying to test Einstein's Theory of Relatively. One of their guides tells the women that what we now call the First World War has ended, but they did not know that it had begun.
I don’t think I give away too much by disclosing the final dialogue, which in context is one of the all time great endings.
The granddaughter returns to see her mother and tells her that men have landed on the moon.
“What did they find?” she asks.
“Sand.”
I have finished painting.
What I thought would be a one day job took parts of four.
Painting walls is easier than painting a boat. Much less prep work, though in masking I did use up two full rolls of tape.
If I paint any more I may have to join the union.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007