![]() ![]() ![]() Dubus himself studied Persian and made a real, and successful, effort to capture the sweetness and the foibles of Iranians for example, even as the colonel shows an obsession with maintaining appearances in front of his fellow exiles, he has the nerve to disapprove of Americans for being too focused on money, an attitude typical of many immigrants.ġ Interview with Andre Dubus III by Robert Birnbaum at 1 Despite this fierce antagonism, the colonel is the most sympathetic character in his book, as well as a vehicle for a critique of American society. As a Marxist, Dubus was horrified by the shah's Iran and even today says he "loves" the analogy between it and the Third Reich. The story line was inspired in part by a newspaper clipping about a woman who lost her house and in part by the author's long-term involvement with an Iranian woman whose father had been a colonel in the shah's air force. As the days go by, the battle between the two sides escalates, ending finally in tragedy for them both, deaths on one side and imprisonment on the other. ![]() In a strange development, one of the policemen who evicted the woman from the house then becomes her lover and her ally in the effort to retrieve the property. The two of them battle over this house – she totally outraged at being evicted and he desperate to keep it. The tight story concerns a young woman who loses her family house because of not paying a trivial amount of taxes, and its being bought by an ex-colonel in the shah's military who is trying to build a new life for his family and himself in the San Francisco area. There's a desperately inevitable, powerfully tragic last reel, but getting there is absolute torture.Dubus has written probably the first best-selling novel about the experience of an immigrant Muslim in the United States. The writer-director, a Ukrainian immigrant making his move from a career in commercials, makes his boldest stroke with a couple of shocking fits of violence and misogyny from Behrani that complicate our feelings towards him. Repetitive, portentous shots of fog enveloping the Golden Gate Bridge start getting silly, too - particularly since the house in dispute isn't in San Francisco. But he's also intent on Connelly's legs and buttocks, giving her side of the story the look of a tawdry melodrama. The Americans are largely appalling, the immigrants vulnerable and sensitive. Perelman is intent on politicising the scenario. After Kathy is taken up by a local deputy of little brain (Ron Eldard) who doesn't like foreigners, the feud turns furious and ever more ominous. Meanwhile, however, Kathy's argument that her eviction was a bureaucratic error seems to have some merit, but the two parties fail to communicate. He and his family (quite beautifully played by Shohreh Aghdashloo and Jonathon Ahdout) move in and are happy. He can also fix it up, re-sell it, move onwards and upwards, and see his son through college. When he sees that this house with a view of the Pacific Ocean is being auctioned, Behrani wants it because he is haunted by memories of his lost bungalow on the Caspian Sea. There is a riveting scene in which he enters a smart building filthy in his work clothes, escapes the hostile doorman, washes in the men's room and emerges, unrecognised, imperious in an elegant suit. While she's sleeping in her car and wandering barefoot (with suspiciously pedicured tootsies) swigging from liquor bottles, our hearts go out instead to Kingsley's Behrani, a former colonel in Iran who maintains a facade of prosperity and authority while labouring on a road construction crew. Connelly's Kathy is preposterously lovely for such a loser, but from the moment we hear she's being evicted because she hasn't opened her mail for months - indeed, she appears not to have been out of bed for months - it's clear she's not firing on all cylinders. This slow-burning adaptation of Andre Dubus III's bestselling novel of pride and prejudice, possession and obsession, is initially intriguing and laden with dread. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |