The House of the Spirits | 
| Director: Bille August
Actors: Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas
Studio: Live / Artisan
Category: DVD
Buy New: $78.99
New (8) Used (9) from $49.92
Rating:  48 reviews
Sales Rank: 55382
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dvd, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 140 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
UPC: 012236117971
EAN: 0012236117971
ASIN: B00005B1VQ
Theatrical Release Date: April 1, 1994
Release Date: May 22, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
The House of the Spirits is a generational tale of life among the ruling class in a South American country, as adapted from the Isabel Allende novel, but the political realities coexist very uneasily with the magical realism in this Bille August film. The star power alone (Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Winona Ryder, Antonio Banderas, Vanessa Redgrave, and Armin Mueller-Stahl) should have cranked it up a few notches, but that's not the case. Irons is appropriately cruel as the ambitious man who achieves wealth and makes everyone around him miserable and Streep is luminous, but it's slow and ponderous all the way. --Marshall Fine
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 43 more reviews...
I love this film! June 9, 2009
G. Torres (New York, New York)
Of course the book is far better than the movie as it usually happens, yet I can't help but love this film and I think the main reason is because it was great and refreshing to see Winona Ryder play a character unlike any other she had done prior to this movie.
In reality this movie should have been made into a miniseries, having other characters such as Clara's excentric uncle who appears at the beginning in the book, the twins and Alba's love interest. Nonetheless, this movie with all its imperfections shall always have a special place in my heart.
 A rewarding film! January 19, 2009
Hiram Gomez Pardo (Valencia, Venezuela)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
From the touching inspiration of Isabel Allende, this feminine perspective deals about the profound emotional conflicts inside a wealthy family. The film makes a smart narrative ellipsis through threwe generations along seventy years, and shows us those first insights of a little child by then, who is gifted of premonitory visions, who falls in love with the boyfriend of her sister. She foresees an imminent tragedy and lives with this terrible sense of guilt by not having been able to avoid it.
But, through the years, this young boy will become a true wealthy man and love will make the rest. But meanwhile, there's a lot of brilliant secondary plots that enrich the historical vision with absorbing engagement.
Once more, Jeremy Irons and Merrill Streep reencountered again and both head with admirable realism to convey those unsaid feelings. But besides, the film shows us the social environment, its inner contradictions, the conflict of power between this self-exigent man and his sister Ferula (Glenn Close) and the unstoppable love affair (a veiled homage to Romeo and Juliet) among his own daughter (Winona Ryder with her dazzling beauty) and the son of a very humble worker of his farm (Antonio Banderas).
The narrative pulse of Billie August breaths a pastoral poetry, with those arresting landscapes but overall to be able to express and even universalize the provincial environment without falling into commonplaces.
 reconciliation and growth- the "connection between events"- that's what the movie is about December 29, 2006
Mauricio Miraglia (New York City, NY USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
At least that's what it meant to me. Replace "South America" in all reviews by the word "Chile", because that is where the story belongs in its cut and dry facts. A wealthy family, a Shakespearean love between a peasant's son and a land owner's daughter; betrayal, rage, passion, violence and murder, ghosts (spirits), rebelion and freedom: all these are just some of the ingredients portraid in the movie with a great line up, awsome landscape and fairly good soundtrack. If you ever visit Chile, please see this movie and you'll understand part of the Chilean character and history: under our modern facade, there's still Biancas, Pedros and Truebas.
The movie personally helped me see my own story and find new connections between myself, my family and the culture where I was born and raised: that of Chile's.
Corrections for Synopsis September 19, 2006
Margaret Sincere
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Extremely Fantastic Movie! I just happened along this movie on
The IFC Channel, hate to think how many really good movies I miss and have missed.
Please rewrite the synopsis as follows: sentence #2, "The poor Estaban marries Clara and they have (not get) a daughter, Blanca.
Sentence #3, Estaban works hard and earns (not gets) the money to buy.....
After reading the negative reviews on this movie I would like to remind people that the book was 'loosely based' on the novel. I really wonder what the negative reviewers think is a good movie, let me know!
AN OUTSTANDING FAMILY SAGA... May 1, 2006
Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I love this movie! It has a stellar cast, who give top notch performances. How can you go wrong with Jeremy Irons, Meryl Streep, Glenn Close, Antonio Banderas, Winona Ryder, Vanessa Redgrave, and Armin Muehler-Stahl? The answer is that you can't. It is a riveting piece of film making, based loosely upon Isabelle Allende's wonderful book of the same name.
The film delicately captures the mysticism of the book, rendering those scenes in which such is the focal point highly believable. This is no mean feat given the subject matter. The story takes place in South America. The saga begins in the nineteen thirties.
Vanessa Redgrave and Armin Muehler-Stahl play the wealthy and liberal parents of two daughters, Rosa and Clara Del Valle. Rosa is the beautiful, older daughter. Clara, played by Meryl Streep's real life daughter, is a lovely child with exceptional, psychic gifts. Jeremy Irons plays the part of Esteban Trueba, an impoverished young man in love with Rosa. Vowing to make his fortune in order to marry her and provide her with the comforts to which she is accustomed, he succeeds in making his fortune. He loses Rosa, however, before being able to marry her, when she drinks poisoned wine intended for her liberal party father.
Esteban, broken hearted, leaves with his fortune and buys an estancia, where he sternly rules with an iron fist over the peasants who work the land for him. They obsequiously refer to him as "Patron". He takes what he wants, even the women, with the expected result. He has a bastard son whom he does not acknowledge.
Esteban has a spinster sister, Ferla, well acted by Glenn Close, who, for the past twenty years, has lived a grim existence in the city with their ailing mother, whom she has taken care of. When their mother dies, Esteban, now a bitter and lonely man, returns to the city from his estancia to attend his mother's funeral. In doing so, he spots Clara, who is now all grown up and ethereally portrayed by the very talented Meryl Streep. Not wasting a moment, he goes to her home. She, luminous, and mystical, already knows that he is there to ask for her hand in marriage and happily accepts. After all, she has loved him ever since she first saw him all those years ago.
Clara lovingly embraces his sister, Ferla, into the bosom of her househould, when they move to her Esteban's estancia. Ferla blossoms from a bitter old maid into a companionable and pleasant woman, under Clara's warmth. Esteban and Clara eventually have a child, Blanca, who grows up playing with Pedro, the son of the estancia's indigenous indian foreperson. When Esteban discovers this, he sends Blanca away to boarding school. He does not want his daughter fraternizing with the peasants.
Clara, loving and pure of heart, is his exact opposite. When their daughter finally grows up and returns home from school, she knows that the independent Blanca, well played by Winona Ryder, has fallen in love with her childhood playmate, Pedro, passionately portrayed by Antonio Banderas. Esteban hates Pedro, as Pedro is a liberal inciting the peasants to unionize and demand their rights, whipping them into a frenzy against the "Patron", or so Esteban sees it. He drives Pedro off his land. He also drives Ferla off, as he believes her to have unatural feelings for his wife, Clara. Possessive to a fault, he is consumed by jealousy. Clara and Esteban have a fight over his cruelties, and she finally leaves him, taking Blanca with her to the Del Valle family home in the city.
Meanwhile, life goes on. Blanca, pregnant by Pedro, has his child, believing that Pedro has been killed by her father. Esteban, representing the wealthy, becomes senator. He reigns for years, until the liberals win power. When they do, however, their tenure is short lived, as a militairy coup sets up a reign of terror and his old sins come home to roost. Meanwhile, Blanca discovers that Pedro is alive, and they joyously hook up again. When Blanca is picked up as a political dissident and tortured for her political views, Esteban, old and broken, is now just a bit player in a larger arena. Too late, he tries to right some wrongs. Some of the wrongs, however, can never be righted.
This is a magnificent, multi-generational family epic, that holds the viewer in its thrall. While it only loosely follows Isabelle Allende's wonderful book of the same name, it is a winner in its own right. It has something for everyone, as it deals with human nature, as well as the complex emotions, forces, and events that shape one. The film is about a family struggling to find its place in our ever changing world, and the relationships that each member of that family forges. It is a rich and vibrant tapestry, which succeeds in capturing the viewer.
|
|
|
