Ray Pride

While I've read quibbles about the plot machinations of Vadim Perelman's debut feature, "House of Sand and Fog," no one's dared complain about the acting.

Jennifer Connelly plays Kathy Nicolo, an irresponsible reformed alcoholic who loses the tumbledown bungalow in Northern California she inherited from her father after a bureaucratic mix-up (which is ultimately her own fault). The house is auctioned off, bought by Massoud Amir Behrani (Ben Kingsley), a proud man keeping up appearances years after the fall of the Shah and the loss of his position in the Iranian Air Force. In only a few scenes, mostly in Farsi or in gestures, Iranian actress Shohreh Aghdashloo breaks the heart. Yet Kingsley's embodiment of the most buttoned-up of men is a marvel as well.

Perelman's adaptation of Andre Dubus III's bestseller has a novelistic density. "The novel was a great read, it's big, confident, a Dostoevskian, beautiful, powerful novel," Kingsley tells me over tea. "The screenplay? It is in and of itself one of the most perfectly balanced screenplays I've come across. Very compelling for us actors to enter into such a beautifully balanced piece of work, like a piece of engineering or architecture."

The most chilling and thrilling dynamic is the fact that this man and this woman are on a battleground, and that battle is waged on the most confined and intimate of spaces, the home, the hearth. "Yes, `tis the battlefield. Absolutely," he agrees.

There are images with blood that are startling as they evolve. We see Behrani's reaction to blood in his home, you think first, control freak. Remembrance of acts he may have committed in the past, and then there's the fear of what may happen to his family. "There was even a scene where Behrani cuts his finger and sees blood trickling down his own thumb," Kingsley says, leaned forward in his chair. "In his genius, and in his confidence, our director decided, I don't even need that. The audience had begun to gently appreciate the underlying themes, as you do in a symphony. There's that thing, you feel persuaded by it! Not manipulated. I watched the film as if it were not one of my films."

Is that rare? "Very rare. It never happened before! I was actually able to watch in a passionately detached way. Which is what I think is what we're talking about, where the filmmaker, the auteur's ego is shown in confidence and generosity and not in writing `Aren't I a clever filmmaker' on the corner of every frame."

Everyone wants or needs or craves something, but they're unexamined wants and dreams. There's a brief scene where a deputy sheriff too deep into the case and her beauty is inventing her, he hardly knows her. "I don't deserve you," and Kathy says, "Yes, you do." That's something new lovers say, but what the heck is going on? "I don't deserve you." He's not paying attention to the fact that he's allowing a reformed alcoholic to drink again.

"'Yes, you do'" is a terrible premonition," Kingsley says. "She's the bringer of death. She's the bringer of death. She's like Kali. The destroyer. `Yes, you do' is a flash of intuition, deep, terrifying intuition. His is shallow and platitudinous, but her response has massive depth to it. She doesn't know how deep! It just pops out. She doesn't know. We never know when we say these things. `Yes, you do.' I laughed out loud in the cinema." He chuckles. "One or two other people laughed. I think many smiled. `Yes, you do.' Wow."

Delivered with Connelly's slight, small twang. "It's perfect," Kingsley allows.

The last time I spoke to Kingsley, he gave me an answer about accents that was almost a master class. I wondered what touchstone, or emblematic element about Colonel Behrani let him in. "Hala [Bahmet] is our costume designer. Hala's a wonderful woman, she's very intelligent, very creative. Operates at a very high level of energy. She has the metabolism of a prima ballerina. The meetings between actor and costume designer can be very uneasy. Because they're very early on in the process. The actor is in that very insecure period where, in fact, just before the cell divides, there's chaos. Good chaos, but chaos. So [it's] primal soup time for my character. I tried on shoes. And suits. And ties. I said, `Hala, yes, I really don't know. You tell me what suits I'm going to be wearing in these scenes because I really don't know. You tell me and I'm sure you're right.' And of course she was. Then she said, `Here's the photo.' She showed me photographs of generals and colonels. And also said they were in L.A. And she also said that they'd given me medals and a uniform and would I care to try it on? There he was. There he was."

Even in a suit, he's wearing a uniform, there's no line between the tie and the collar and the jacket. "He's never out of his uniform. And that was it. That small incident, at the best time, at the primal soup stage rather than, `The uniform is great, we'll get it to you on the day, don't worry. It's not quite finished yet.' [Behrani] opens and ends the film in his uniform. His narrative, his particular branch of the narrative, begins almost as if he is taking a salute on a balcony. A tree is falling is down. It ends with him looking at himself in the mirror, almost taking the salute to the Shah. He wears the uniform: what the uniform demands, what it did to his body. My body just decided, as an actor, don't ever let me out of that uniform."

"House of Sand and Fog" is now playing.

(2003-12-30)

Also by Ray Pride

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