House of Sand and Fog stars Ben Kingsley as an Iranian immigrant who spends his savings on a house for his daughter, but there is some dispute between former owners and things start to spiral out of control... blah, blah. If that doesn't sound too thrilling on paper, then the film has garnered plenty of excellent reviews, largely because of the excellent cast and as a great character study of people put into a situation that is nobody's fault, yet almost impossible to resolve happily. It is quite a surprise for Varese to be releasing a James Horner score and I half suspected that the company's rather more limited resources might reign in the composer's typically generous albums a little, but at a shade under 70 minutes, this would appear not to be the case. However, yet again, someone really ought to be a little more ruthless when preparing Horner's albums.

The opening track is not especially promising, a wash of synths that don't really go anywhere, but The Waves of the Caspian Sea is an early highlight with a cliché, but effective musical portrayal of the sea in a typically Debussian fashion. As always, Horner's atmospheric and dramatic compass seems spot on, with a melancholy mood that pervades every cue. The piano is often highlighted, or functions alone as in Two People, which has a marvellous duality about it as the harmonies shift from major to minor, which draws the listener in, while keeping things perpetually unsettled. Break-In reprises the surging strings of The Waves of the Caspian Sea, turning them into a more suspenseful motif with a little percussion.

To paraphrase a comment regarding Wagner's operas, House of Sand and Fog has good moments but boring quarter hours. This is especially noticeably in The Shooting, A Payment for Our Sins which only engages sporadically, the rest is rather more filler. What is presumably a small hint at the origins of Kingsley's onscreen family, a little quasi-ethnic percussion underpins a couple of cues, notably Behrani's Thoughts and, more intensely, in "This is no longer your house." House of Sand and Fog is almost drama without music. You can feel the tension and pain of the film throughout every minute of the score, but that doesn't necessarily make it good music and certainly doesn't make it enjoyable. Hard going at times and with plenty of longeurs, but not bad for all that.

Rating ~

1. An Older Life (1:54)
2. The Waves of the Caspian Sea (4:00)
3. Old Photos, New Memories (3:23)
4. "This is no longer your house" (3:34)
5. Two People (3:49)
6. Kathy's Night (2:18)
7. Parallel Lives, Parallel Loves (5:22)
8. Behrani's Thoughts - Long Ago (4:49)
9. Break-In (2:34)
10. The Dreams of Kings (6:58)
11. The Shooting, A Payment for Our Sins (15:18)
12. "We have travelled so far, it is time to return to our path" (9:05)
13. A Return to the Caspian, and to the Iran of Old (6:37)

Total Time ~ 69:25