accessAtlanta

'House of Sand' delivers memorable images and acting

A decades-spanning Brazilian film that's literally elemental, "The House of Sand" dramatizes survival (physical, emotional) in a landscape at its most ferocious: blinding sun, deafening lightning storms, bone whipping wind. Oh, and sand. Sand that buries houses, burrows into clothes and burns the eye with its endless, blazing whiteness.

Sony Pictures Classics 'House of Sand' B+ The verdict: Slow and demanding, but gorgeous — and gorgeously acted. Director: Andrucha Waddington Starring: Fernanda Montenegro, Fernanda Torres, Ruy Guerra, Seu Jorge, Luis Melodia Run time: 114 minutes Release date: August 11, 2006 Language: Portuguese with English subtitles Rating: Rated R for some graphic sexuality. On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'House of Sand'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

The setting is Maranhão, in northern Brazil. The aerial glimpse of the region that opens the film — a treeless terrain rippled with brown earth, white sand and glimmers of dark lagoon — looks like an alien world. That's exactly what it is to the pregnant Áurea (Fernanda Torres) and her mother, Dona Maria (Fernanda Montenegro) who arrive from Brasilia, the capital.

It's 1910, and they've come in a caravan with Áurea's husband, Vasco (Ruy Guerra), who has bought a patch of land in this desolation, empty except for fugitive slaves in a settlement nearby. After a series of misfortunes, Áurea and Maria find themselves alone and at the mercy of these wary neighbors, especially Massu (Seu Jorge), a widower in patched clothes who helps them to trade for necessities, and buy and sell livestock.

But the only thing Áurea desires is a way out of the desert and back to civilization — a desire complicated by her pregnancy and by her mother's growing attachment to the region. Time moves forward as inexorably as the dune behind the women's homestead, which digs in and fills it with ever more sand, as if the house were a giant hourglass.

Here's where the movie introduces its coolest hat trick. Mother and daughter in reality, Montenegro (a deserving Oscar nominee for 1998's "Central Station") and Torres (married to "The House of Sand" director Andrucha Waddington in real life) begin to share the same roles. As Áurea ages, Montenegro assumes the character. And Torres becomes Áurea's daughter Maria as an adult.

The conceit works beautifully, since Torres has the same determined, stern lines around the mouth, and large, liquid eyes as her mother. She's also got the acting chops, and real bravery. (Torres delivers a sex scene that's as eye-popping in its own way as the striking scenery.)

"The House of Sand" is not a plot-heavy movie. It's one built on textures, silences and memorable images. It has the simplicity of a fable — especially an interlude with the younger Áurea and a Brazilian soldier (Enrique Díaz), whom she discovers traveling with a group of astronomers.

They've come to the desert to photograph the stars during a solar eclipse, and as they celebrate a day's work with wine and food, some of the scientists pull out musical instruments and start to play.

Hearing music, after so long in its absence here in the desert, Áurea trembles with emotion. Some years later, her daughter, still a child (played by Camilla Facundes), asks, "What is real music like?"

It's a question that resonates to the last scenes of the film — which itself is like a piece of music: rigorously structured, but with the power to shake you to the heart.