 Right
direction
Hollywood's first refined portrayals
of Iranian Americans
By Trita Parsi
December 22, 2003
The Iranian
DreamWorks new movie for the holiday season, House
of Sand and Fog, based on Andre Dubus III bestselling novel
with the same title, is poised to intrigue
Iranian-Americans due to its Iranian-American lead
characters, its complex portrayal of Iranian cultural
traits, and it being one of the first Hollywood
productions in which Middle Easterners are depicted as
multifaceted individuals and not one-dimensional
shooting targets.
The
movie astutely captures the dark side of the immigrant
experience in America, an experience that may be all too
familiar to many Iranian Americans. Massoud Amir Behrani
(Ben Kingsley - Gandhi), a former Royalist colonel in
the Iranian military, is living a life beyond his means,
desperately trying to keep up the pretense of the wealth
and power he once enjoyed in pre-revolutionary Iran in
order to enhance his daughter's chances of making a good
marriage.
Risking
the remainder of his fortune to restore his family's
dignity, he buys a small house at an auction in order to
restore it and sell it for four times its original
price. However, what was supposed to be an ingenious
business transaction quickly develops into a trajectory
to disaster.
The
house has been auctioned because of a bureaucratic
error, and Behrani's plans are jeopardized when Kathy
Nicolo (Jennifer Connelly - A Beautiful Mind), the
self-destructive and alcoholic owner of the house,
begins to protest the sale.
What
starts out as a legal scuffle soon spirals into a
personal confrontation, starting a tug of war between
two struggling, proud people, each buoyed by the
genuine
belief that they have justice on their side. To both
of
them, the house represents something more than just
a
place to live. To the former Iranian colonel, the
beachfront home is the first step to restoring his
family's pre-revolutionary lifestyle. To Nicolo,
the house represents an illusionary safe-haven that
helps
her veil the failure that she has become.
Besides
being a movie with an undeniably deep emotional touch
and a prime Oscar contender, it is also one of
Hollywood's first refined and sophisticated portrayals
of Iranians and Iranian Americans. Although the trailer
of the movie may give the impression that Colonel
Berhani is the "bad guy" -- an unreasonable and
aggressive man untouched by human feelings -- it belies
the movie which leaves the audience with a deep feeling
of sympathy and admiration for the proud and dignified
Iranian-American.
Although
a portrayal is just that -- a subjective portrayal of
reality and not reality itself -- Dubus and Perelman's
depiction of Iranian-Americans and Iranian culture may
be incomplete, but it is not unrealistic. It is a blend
of the positive and negative that constitutes all
cultures, and it is a step in the right direction for
Hollywood; away from its simplistic, Manichean
perspective and towards a polished outlook with a focus
on the essence of the individual and not the misleading
emotions of the stereotype.
Author
Trita Parsi is President of the Nationail
Iranian American Council.
December is Donate
to Iranian.com Month
* Send
this page to your friends
|
Right
direction