casa de areia

Just saw Casa de Areia (House of Sand) with my parents last night. We got just because it was yet another Brazilian movie with Fernanda Montenegro... ...it's kind of the equivalent of having Meryll Streep in an American movie; yeah she's all over the place, but she's still a good actress. So if the script itself is any good, then she will do an admirable job, sometimes exceptional. If it's not so good of a movie, then she will not necessarily make the film any better. I'll go with admirable in this one. The film isn't so great, but there's some beautiful scenery and some funny dialog. It's difficult to get at the isolation of living in the middle of sand dunes with almost no one around, and no connection to the outside world, so this movie did a decent job at that. But there were too many sloooooow parts to this film; I guess I expected more internal dialog for each character; I know my mind would be going at a mile an hour (especially when first confronted by the isolation).
Fernanda Torres does a decent job as Montenegro's daughter, which shouldn't come as a surprise, considering the two share that bond in real life. Side note: my mom pointed out that this family is the least creative in the planet: Fernanda Montenegro married Fernando Torres, and they named their daughter Fernanda. I think i'll just leave that one alone.
Seu Jorge is in this film too, and he alternatively helps and hinders the women's plight to escape this desert.
The "desert", by the way, is the Lençóis (blankets) in the state of Maranhão. These sand dunes flood with water when it rains, creating a beautiful rippling of sand and water. It's most interesting from above, and though it is beautiful, i gotta say: it might get boring after a day or so (especially after seeing this film). That and the price of the plane ticket there steered me away from including it in my trip next month...