People are voting emotionally.

Dreadfully Boring

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

This movie didn't make sense at all. My rule is if it's not a comedy and it's move funny than dramatic then it's not serving it's purpose. It was like Gilligan's Island gone horribly wrong. First of all; why couldn't they get one person to take them away years before the daughter became grown. The first mother came their with her husband but couldn't get out, that was kind of understandable. The daughter grew up and had a child of her own, a girl, and she couldn't get anyone to drive her into town. I don't get why the plot was about her 59 years like her mother didn't exist. The daughter/grand-daughter was a trip and she gave the movie it's comedic edge but there's were the problem comes to light.Everything she did was wrong and wouldn't have been fun if the movie was good and made sense. It hurt the film when the lady that first played the Grandma was used to play the mother and the young woman used to play the daughter played her own daughter.

Aurea (Fernanda Torres), heads with her visionary husband, her feeble mother and a few deluded colonists through sand dune after sand dune to some marshy land near the sea, hundreds of miles from civilization. Shortly after arriving, the rest of the colonists decide this was a bad idea and take off. Aurea's husband, angry at the quitters, tries to finish his hut himself and within minutes knocks some poles over on his head and dies. Now Aurea, several months pregnant, and her old mother are left pretty much to themselves in the absolute middle of nowhere. They find the remnants of a fugitive slave camp nearby and get a few meager supplies there. They plan on leaving, 10 years later, they are still planning on leaving. Aurea finally hooks up with one of the dudes from the colony and decides it isn't so bad. 20 more years pass, Aurea has transformed into her mother who died earlier in a sand accident and is now played by Fernanda Montenegro and Maria the daughter born in the desert in now played by Fernanda Torres. Maria is a carefree, lazy girl, drinking and hooking up with the local youth. But what can you expect when you live in the sand without civilization.This movie is like eating a picnic on the beach. You've got some egg salad sandwiches, some apple slices and some chocolate chip cookies, but as you eat, you notice a particular crunch. Yes, there is sand in the egg salad, yes there is sand on the apples, yes there is sand in the cookies. But it's not so bad, it's still pretty good. What's more there's sand in your ear and even in your butt crack (where there should never be sand). You have been invaded by sand, but what can you do but lay back and let it take over, it's part of the beach experience. 7/10http://blog.myspace.com/locoformovies

From Brazil begins this unusual tale taking place in their early 20th century's untamed deserts, leading a distraught man, his wife, with family and following, to the absurd notion of settling into the middle of an elusive waterhole, centered in the middle of an endless sandscape, into one eventual House of Sand. What transpires from the mysterious setup of this piece is captured with quite dignity, accentuated with the production values that would have any techie humbled by the tough shoot this crew must have undergone to balance the artsy direction to the harsh environment. It is to the film's detriment then, that the vast majority of time is spent milking the unique aesthetics involved here, insensitively editing many of the beautifully photographed shots which adds up to a whole that unwittingly imitates it's protagonist's plight a little too closely- that of sinking into the ground of nothingness. Fortunately a cleverly conceived, though questionably rendered plot device snaps the viewer's interest back late in the game, even rounding out the mostly one trick affair on a profound note. This extra dimension carved out in the third act does save this House from blowing away for the artistic excuse a lot of it seems to be.

As the story opens on the screen we watch a desert-like landscape that seems uninhabitable, and yet, there is such beauty and serenity in the dunes being formed as the wind pounds on them mercilessly. As the camera rests on some dunes in the distance, we watch as a convoy of people and donkeys are moving slowly in the sand. Whatever possessed Vasco De Sa to buy this land, seems to be incomprehensible; that he tries to make a living out of civilization among the shifting sand is just folly!Little by little we get to know a bit more about Vasco, his wife, Aurea, her mother Maria, as the men he has brought to help him leave them after experiencing the harsh elements in such an arid place. Things aren't made any better when a group of blacks come to see Vasco, who thinks they are going to rob him. He appeases them by giving them some of the things he has brought to this remote place, and we also learn about an island nearby where these former slaves have settled.After Vasco's tragic death, Dona Maria and Aurea, who is pregnant, are left to deal with the elements. After ten years have passed and Aurea has given birth to her daughter, Maria, she goes exploring and discovers a camp where foreign scientists are making astronomy studies. After a night with Luiz, she goes back for her mother and daughter, but finds her house in ruins after the shifting sand has crushed part of it. Only the young Maria survives.The kind Massu, on of the black men from the island, has loved Aurea from afar. Fate and circumstances bring them together by a bond that goes beyond all reason. After years have passed, Maria, who is now a grown woman discovers Luiz, who has returned to the area, not knowing what role he had played in her mother and her lives. Aurea tells her daughter to go with Luiz back to civilization, but Aurea has no desire to see a world she can't comprehend anymore.This exquisitely told story by director Andrucha Waddington is one of the most beautiful films that have come from Brazil in quite a while. The screen play by the excellent Elena Soarez, whose work one has admired as well, collaborates with Mr. Waddington once more in this strange, but highly moving picture about isolation, loyalty and folly. The wonderful cinematography by Ricardo Della Rosa makes everything one sees even better, if that's possible. The magnificent desert location and even the eclipse his camera captures fills one's senses like no other film in recent memory. Joao Barone and Carlo Bertolini's music score is another element that works with all we are watching.Of course, the film belongs to the two magnificent actresses at the center of the story. Fernanda Montenegro and her real life daughter, Fernanda Torres, make a great contribution to create these women of the desert. Fernanda Montenegro is seen as three different versions of the older women in the story and Fernanda Torres plays the young Aurea and the grown up Maria, the girl that was born in that remote area. Ruy Guerra, himself a distinguished director, plays Vasco with conviction. Seu Jorge, Stenio Garcia and the rest of the cast contribute to make this film work.It's curious to note some negative comments mainly from postings by Brazilian contributors to IMDb. The film, which was received with bad reviews, in general, from the media in that country, deserved much better. It's also curious that viewers from other areas get a different message and pleasure after viewing this film.