Link between choice, responsibility, and power revealed!

As Peter Parker's Uncle Ben once said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Responsibility is an oft discussed theme in the philosophy in existentialism, one bearing heavily on the hearts of man. Responsibility is the acceptance of the action's that one takes, the acceptance of a choice. Uncle Ben's famous statement could be interpreted in an existentialist form as, "With choice comes great power, and with great power comes great responsibility." The notion of choice and responsibility containing the potential for destructive power presents itself in the movie House of Sand and Fog. The movie stars Jennifer Connelly as Kathy, a depressed, reclusive woman who loses her house on a wrongly filed business tax. It also features Ben Kingsley as Mr. Behrani, an ex-Iranian military officer who is working two jobs until he purchases the house that Connelly's character lost. He wants to spruce the house up and flip it to make enough money to get his family into a respectable house and his son into college. The conflict comes as Kathy wants her house back. She meets a policeman named Lester who has troubles of his own. The movie is essentially a back and forth between Berhani and Kathy and Lester, trying to bring each other down and slowly chipping away at each other's lives. The climax is reached when Kathy parks in her old driveway, downs five or six mini bottles of hard liquor and puts a gun to her head. The gun has the safety on. Her failed suicide attempt causes Behrani to ignore his previous quarrel with her and give her help. The following day Lester enters the house with his gun, partly crazed, partly aware, and completely scared. He locks the Behrani family in their bathroom assuming they tried to kill Kathy, rather than trying to save her. Kathy becomes aware of the situation, but allows it to continue. There the existential question is reached. Does Kathy's apathy absolve her of responsiblity? The existential answer is no. It was a choice to not act, and she must live with the results. The film makes these consequences strikingly brutal. Lester forces Behrani and his son to the courthouse to sign over the house to Kathy, on their way Behrani's son disarms Lester and accidentally points the gun at policemen who then fire upon and kill him. This was all the result of the rash and crazed choices of Lester, who then acts as if had no part in the teen's death. At the conclusion of the film Behrani poisons his wife and kills himself. He accepts his choice, as the film plays scenes of their old iranian villa as he dies, implying that he is happy, happy with his choice because he accepts its outcome, perhaps suggesting that Kathy is always unhappy because she is always running. The film also expresses the immense power that a simple choice can produce, as the entire series of events would never have even happened if Kathy had simply opened her mail instead of trying to escape her financial issues. Power comes from responsibility, from choice. We can always choose.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REodL9tT0Cg

This is the trailer for the film if you would like some reference. Interesting how Lester says, "You have no choice."