[.ca] Snow Falling on Cedars (Widescreen) (ISBN 0783240325)

From Amazon.com:
Australian director Scott Hicks's follow-up to his widely beloved Shine comes as a small shock. Based on David Guterson's bestselling novel, Snow Falling on Cedars is far removed from the character-driven, pure storytelling of Shine and a comparative plunge into moody atmospherics. Action insinuates itself through the director's determined eye for watercolor composition and free-floating perspective, like random shoots of new growth in an overwhelming rain forest. It's impossible to be complacent as a viewer because Hicks's meditative style paradoxically forces one to locate and make the story happen internally. The approach makes good aesthetic sense in that Guterson's story couches courtroom drama in dreamy textures, and Hicks is determined to reflect that even if it means turning an audience's idea of narrative on its head. He also gets a lot of help from the weather in the Pacific Northwest: the setting is one of Washington State's San Juan Islands, where rain embraces earth and sky in a singular, introverted personality. There, a Japanese American war hero (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) stands accused of murdering a white fisherman in the years following World War II. His wife (Youki Kudoh) is the former childhood sweetheart and lover of a local newspaperman (Ethan Hawke) whose bitterness over the loss--as well as his helplessness during the internment of Japanese Americans, and the crusading legacy of his journalist father (Sam Shepard)--prevents him from coming to the defense of the accused man. Layered emotions, layered sensations, layered clouds. This is historical fiction of a sort that works best as an experience of time's relativity: flowing, stopping, trickling. Ironically, the film's most commercial element, the trial, is the least interesting aspect, though old pro Max Von Sydow makes those scenes great fun as a wily defense counsel. --Tom Keogh

Haunted by the past / poetic film - overwhelming photography:
'Snow Falling on cedars' -adapted from David Guterson's novel- is about a murder trial, about racism and about a love that couldn't last. I like the story as it is being told by director Scott Hicks. He seems to work like a musician, as a composer with a magic hand for telling a multilayered story in a perfect pace, just like the way themes develop and grow in good symphonic classical music. Scott Hicks also seems to have the hand and eyes of a painter and the imagination of a poet. Proof of this is the overwhelmingly beautiful photography of the film and the way the imagery blends perfectly with the beautiful music of James Newton Howard. 'Snow falling on cedars' is set on an American island in the straits north of Puget Sound, in Washington, with a large Japanese-American community. Everyone on this island is either a fisherman or a berry farmer. At the core of 'Snow falling on cedars' lies a dramatic love story. It focuses on the most painful loss for a human soul to endure. Imagine yourself living in a small community where you are confronted every day with someone who once dearly loved you, but, due to extreme circumstances -in this case World War II- had to leave you and eventually married someone else... and you've never stopped loving that person. Whereas a deceased beloved person becomes a closed book, containing memories of the past, a living beloved one you see every day, but you can't reach anymore, causes probably a deeper trauma of loss. A trauma that can rip a man's heart and soul apart. We see this happen in 'Snow falling on cedars'. The story gives us a deep and subtle look into the human heart of main character Ishmael Chambers (played very well by Ethan Hawke), a journalist who has never overcome a passionate love relationship in his teenage years with the Japanese girl Hatsue Imada (played very well by Youki Kudoh), who -according to her tradition- has married a Japanese guy. Hatsue's husband, fisherman Kazuo Miyamoto, stands on trial for the murder of fisherman Carl Heine. Kazuo's case looks bad and it's 1951, six years after the end of World War II, and nine years after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbour. Japanese-Americans were moved to internment camps during the war. In 1951 many Americans still frown upon their Japanese 'fellow americans' as a not trustworthy 'former enemy'. So ethnicity and racial convictions -although not outspoken- could play a role in the verdict of the jury. Ishmael unravels the case and his findings will be crucial for the fate of Kazuo Miyamoto. While the trial is going on, we learn at the same time in many flashbacks about Ishmael's past love affair with Hatsue. Don't miss this great movie and watch how main character Ismael Chambers finds the strength to show how gentle and generous the heart of a man can be. For all those with a sensitive mind and heart 'Snow falling on cedars' will be a feast for the senses, and of course nothing less can be expected from a true masterpiece.

Why are the critics so clueless????:
Hi, I just finished watching SFOC and I thought it was amazing. Why do the critics fawn all over horrible movies and blast good ones? I guess we'll never know. Yes SFOC was slow-paced, but SOOOO beautiful and intriguing...I felt myself wishing I'd seen it on the big screen, but still it's a terrific movie and I will recommend it to everyone I know. See it!

LUSH ADAPTATION OF DIFFICULT BOOK:
One cannot deny the awesome beauty of some of the camerawork in this adaptation of David Guterson's SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. SNOW FALLING was a slow, lethargic, but overall compelling novel; the movie version is the same. Scott Hicks' direction is frustrating yet magnificent at times. For instance, in Max von Sydow's brilliant summation, the camera never leaves Max's face, and the sequence is overwhelming due to the power of von Sydow's speech. It's a key highlight of the movie. However, earlier on, Hicks tries the overdubbing of too many key scenes; for instance, when Hasue is reading her letter, he overdubs it several times, and it becomes irritating rather than moving; he tries this on other occasions and as a gimmick, it doesn't improve the overall effect. The acting ensemble is marvelous: Ethan Hawke, though not as compelling as he should have been, does well in displaying his anger, hurt, frustration and love; Youki Kodoh as the wife of the accused is wonderful, her spritely demeanor hiding a gigantic love for her husband and for Hawke; Rick Yune (Die Another Day) shows the difficulty in expressing emotion as was taught by his father; James Rebhorn as the prosecutor is great, one of his best roles; James Cromwell does well as the judge in a poorly adapted role; Sam Shepard is very good as Hawke's idealistic father; Celia Weston evokes the nasty prejudice of the time as the victim's coldhearted mother; Richard Jenkins is good as the sheriff caught up in something he's not used to--murder; and Eric Thal is good as the victim, should have had a little more screen time to flesh out his role, and make us feel a little more for him. SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS is a lush, beautifully done film, with an Oscar worthy von Sydow performance; it's hard to stay with it, but if you do, I think you'll be rewarded.

How the bitterness of the past can haunt one in the present:
I can attest to the adage that the first person one falls in love with is forever, regardless of whether that person gets married to someone else or not. Well, in Snow Falling On Cedars, that sort of past comes back to haunt young reporter Ishmael Chambers when he discovers the husband of his first love Hatsue is being tried for the murder of fisherman/husband/father Carl Heine. The case for the prosecution is that Kazuo, Hatsue's husband, murdered Carl with a flat wooden object, such as a kendo stick (wooden swords used in stick fighting), and all because of the loss of seven acres of land owned by Kazuo's father when Kazuo's family was interned during WW2. Kazuo had demanded the return of the land, but because of two payments missed, his family forfeited the land, which came into Carl's possession. He is defended by an elderly lawyer, Nels Gudmundsson (veteran Swedish actor Max von Sydow in a strong performance), who as a Scandinavian, detects the race issue here. Pearl Harbor has not been forgotten, in other words. All the while, Ishmael sits high up on the balcony of the trial room, observing the defendant and his wife. He is clearly still bitter about the past, as he might have ended up with Hatsue had not circumstances dictated otherwise. This bitterness is manifested when he sits on some information key to Kazuo's defense. Set in the fishing village of San Piedro, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, the film shuttles back and forth between the present, in the 1950's, and the past, in the late 30's to 40's. The film shows Ishmael falling in love with Hatsue Imada, a Japanese girl, and both their mothers disapproving of interracial relationships. The overall overcast setting lends to the forboding, oppressive atmosphere, but it works well in the forest, where Hatsue has a little hidey hole in the depths of a large cedar tree, a clandestine meeting place for the young lovers. However, the dizzying array of echoed and repeated voices, and montages connecting various bits of the past can be rather trying. Of course, the attack on Pearl Harbor stirs up anti-Japanese sentiments, setting the stage for what has been called the largest wholesale violation of civil rights in US history: the rounding up of Japanese-Americans from their homes, confiscation of anything traditional, called "old country", and mass deportation to camps like Manzanar, which is the camp the Miyamotos end up in. However, Ishmael's father, Arthur, the editor of the local paper, is very progressive, and protests the roundups, which leads to threatening calls and cancellations of subscriptions. At the time of the trial, his father has died, and he discovers to his discomfort that his father's liberal reputation is overshadowing him. The Japanese traditions of girls being groomed to be graceful, e.g. sitting on one's knees without moving, the wearing of kimonos, etc. is something my late mother could relate to, as she too was Japanese. Hatsue's mother is one forbidding her relationship to Ishmael. Similarly, my mother's father, had he lived, would never have allowed her to marry my father, otherwise your humble reviewer's race would have been different. While Ethan Hawke does well as the brooding Ishmael, he's overshadowed by other performers, such as von Sydow, Youki Koudoh (Hatsue), and Sam Shepard (Arthur Chambers). As the film progresses, one begins to understand his bitterness. I haven't read Guterson's novel, so I don't know how closely the movie follows it. Regardless, it's a slow-paced movie, but not grabbing at times; somehow, the mixture of adolescent romance, and racial courtroom drama that lacks punch. But the message of learning to let go of the past, and the conditions that would allow one to let go, comes through towards the end.

A black-and-white movie made in color ...:
Grim. The title tells it all. The plot is already summed up quite tidily in other reviews. I would just add a few remarks. English is not Kudoh Yuki's native language. In this movie she does one better than Meryl Streep by actually demonstrating mastery of an entire foreign language by speaking American English with an American accent. Of course, she was already good at it, but we have to remember that Hatsue, being born and bred on American shores, was a native speaker. I thought Kudoh was very convincing. Yes, acting is not all about utterances, and her facial expressions may have been formulaic to some point, but this movie is worth watching just for seeing Ms. Kudoh do her stuff. And the movie had a profound message. Because of that and the fact that the story took place in a part of the world I was born in, I found the two hours generally satisfying. Here and there I found the behavior of the characters mystifying - especially crowd behavior. Why, for example, the silent march to the ferry dock? Forced evacuation of citizens based solely on race was truly a glaring violation of the Bill of Rights, but it was not mass genocide. The long walk scene was as drawn-out as it was grim. It featured a nagging bass in the soundtrack and dejected victims stunned to silence. Together they portrayed a stark black-and-white simplicity that I would question. I imagine that at least the children would still be children and think they were all taking part in some community outing. While the scene captured a certain psychological truth, it also was a bit too heavy-handed. We of the here-and-now know far too much and they knew way too little. But the movie is definitely worth the time and money. What I'd like to know, though, is why did they bother to shoot this in color?