A Casa dos Espíritos

This movie is based on the novel of the same title by Isabel Allende. It tells the story of the Trueba family over a span of 50 years. Jeremy Irons plays the passionate yet harsh patriarch of the family. He is a man of contradictions-in public and with his family, he is proper. Behind closed doors, he has many secrets-affairs, brothels, and a bastard son whom he utterly neglects. Time and fate make him confront these demons and he ultimately learns the blessing of forgiveness. Meryl Streep plays his psychically touched wife like an angel-she is so ethereal she seems of the spirit world. Glenn Close plays her love-starved sister-in-law;she conveys her desperation so adeptly. Meryl Streep treats her as a real sister and showers sisterly affection on this poor creature. It is a spellbinding tale and one that has relevance to all families.

I've never been a fan of Bille August, and this film has only furthered my opinion of his work. I found the directing, as well as the editing, choppy and incoherent. Mr. August tried too hard to be mystical and discreet in his telling of the tale--to the point of being annoyingly aloof and superficial.

The take-home message is, however, refreshing in its complexity and layers. The events all seem to come full circle and continue through the generations of the family, as Clara verbalized in her diaries, "the relationships between events." Lende's message was that evil begets evil, and nothing good came from malice. Such is sadly noted upon reflection that many misfortunes stemmed from poor judgment, and unacknowledged or unrectified wrongdoings in the past.

I thought the characters Farula and Esteban were the best-written and the best-acted, by far. Glenn Close exuded every bit of the torn and love-deprived spinster sister, her very gaze a window to her harsh and barren life. Jeremy Irons' portrayal of the dark and contradictory Esteban was brazen yet vulnerable, between his political persona and love for his wife.

I only began to watch this movie because it was on Encore network, and I usually like movies with Streep and/or Irons. It kept me interested the whole 2 hours.

The movie covers 3 generations and about 60 years. It is set in South America. The father (Irons) achieves his wealth, social, and political status through hard work. He is a difficult man, and when his young daughter (Winona Ryder) befriends a young peasant boy, she is sent to school away. The mother (Streep) seems to have some connection with the supernatural.

Eventually a progressive party wins the election, and the old conservative party gets the military to oust the new government. Civil war almost breaks out, people are mistreated, and old relationships must be re-examined.

A good study in character and family relationships, moves a bit slow at times, but represents leisure story-telling. A good movie, I give it "7" of "10". I believe it was loosely based on some historical events.

I just do not get very inspired in this treatment of Isabel Allende's novel. The worst thing is that I cannot even identify exactly what it is that does not succeed in really drawing me into the story. Evidently the film is well made, beautiful filming, and the cast is really extraordinary, with some magnificent interpretations. The make-up department did excellent work on the aging process of the players. This is the second time I have seen this film, but the story's continuity did not get me really sympathising with and feeling for the characters. There is something missing: however, no way can either Meryl Streep or Jeremy Irons, among the other leading actors, be blamed for this. There is something abstract here which I cannot explain. It may be arguable that this film is better than `Missing' (1982) (qv), however `Missing' pulled me much more into the story.

Certainly, in no way should you pass up this film if you get a chance to see it: there are very good interpretations, at times even wondrous, combining with very intelligent photography and Hans Zimmer doing some of his best work.

The book was fabulous and remains one of my favorites. The movie, for some reason reminded me of "The Thorn Birds"--I guess because I felt so much was left out, and it would have been better as a mini-series.

The book evokes a much more magical, mythical, and "Spirit"-ual feeling that reflects the special flavor of life in South America, especially with Clara having green hair, and more powers in the book. A lot of that feeling is left out of the movie.

However, the movie mostly makes up for this lack in the extremely vivid presentation of the characters' emotions.