From a friend:

“THE HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG”

If you have managed to deal with the trauma associated with “The Passion of the Christ” and are ready to see another movie let me recommend “The House of Sand and Fog.”

It tells the story of a young woman who has fallen on hard times. She lives in a family home that had been passed down to her when her father died. Her relationship with her husband or partner has ended and she has been afraid to tell her family who are coming to visit soon. She has a drinking problem. She has not opened any mail for months. It has piled up under the door.

She is woken one morning to discover that because of failure to pay a business tax, the county has issued an acquisition order on her home. The relevant letters advising her of this were in the pile of unopened mail by the door.

Meanwhile somewhere else in the city there is an Iranian refugee who had served as a colonel in the army under the Shah. He is a proud man who had developed a double life. On the one hand he and his family are living well beyond their means in a luxurious city apartment. Each morning he leaves home for work in his Mercedes, dressed in a business suit, briefcase in hand, on the way he stops to change into a pair of overalls before going to work on a road gang.

At the end of the day the ritual is reversed. He hates his job and the predicament in which he finds himself, so when he sees the advertisement for the auction of the young woman’s house he sees an opportunity to buy his way out of his misery. If he can buy the house at a rock bottom price he can then sell it off after improving it and living in it for a while and make a sizeable profit. He will then be able to pay for his son’s education. He goes to the auction and is delighted that his very low bid is successful.

The young woman is now homeless, living in her car and spending the occasional night in a cheap sleazy motel. She seeks free legal advice. They discover that the whole thing has been a mistake. She should never have received the bill. The county agrees to purchase the house back for the young woman.

The new owner, because he had a clear agenda to address his financial needs, reluctantly agrees to sell but only at market rate, which is approximately four times the amount, he paid. The county refuses to do this.

The young woman, out of a sense of powerlessness, takes matters into her own hands but only serves to aggravate the situation. Out of frustration with the young woman, her legal advisor withdraws services and the young woman finds a new friend in the police officer. He embarks upon a rescue mission. The conflict escalates.

Here are the factors that led to the escalation. .The young woman’s incompetent responses to complex life situations. .Her sense of historical connection to the house. .The stubborn pride driving the Iranian colonel’s ambition for his family. .The unwillingness of all parties to listen to the needs of the other, parties. .The bureaucratic response of the county to their own mistakes. .The well intentioned but damaging intervention of the person who was trying to help resolve the conflict. .The serious harm done to some of the secondary participants of the conflict.

One film review said that the story was an allegory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is true that the parallels with the Middle East are strong but they also relate alarmingly well to some of the things I have observed in the local church.