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Fog and Sand

House of Fog and Sand is a thought-provoking story. Often in a conflict, both sides could be right and act from good intention. Yet, as the conflict grows irreconcilable, chance are each side starts to cling to its most obstinate, inflexible position. The early intention to find middle ground disappears. Such in the case in this movie as well. Oddly it reminded me of a friend's divorce proceedings, which started out begin a hasty reaction borne of anger and over the years morphed into something absolutely self-destructive. 

With each attack, one side lost more financially and the other lost more on the human scale. And both decided too much was lost already not to fight harder. All around them well-wishers started to fade out - there is only so much conflict outsiders can participate in or feel any sympathy for. Life goes on. In the movie too, as the protagonists circle each other baying and hissing, their universe shrinking to the four walls of the house under dispute, the rest of the world carries on unaware of the trauma being experienced over a house- in the case of my friend, over a marriage that is over. 

It gets to be a lonely and a deathly place in the end and it all the conflict turns out to have been in vain. No one wins. If Kathy and Colonel Behrani could move time's arrow backward, they would have agreed to a very different solution to their problem and both come ahead. 

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