Snow Falling on Cedars

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Zatoichi's Review

Ethan Hawke may topline the credits of this adaptation of David Guterson's highly-esteemed novel Snow Falling on Cedars, but neither he nor anyone else in the cast can lay claim to being the "star" of the film. That title belongs to director/co-scripter (with Ron Bass) Scott Hicks , who has crafted a lushly evocative mood piece that has everything to do with sense and emotion as it doesn't with traditional plot-driven satisfactions. The film is captivating from the beginning with novel techniques used to evoke memories and feelings.

Of course, there is a story here, and the primary one revolves around the 1950 murder trial of Japanese-American Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune). Kazuo is married to Hatsue (Youki Kudoh), whose heart truly belongs to the caucasian Ishmael Chambers (Hawke), who runs the local newspaper in the Pacific Northwest community of San Piedro. They have been in love ever since they were children, but anti-Japanese sentiment during the WWII-era -culminating in her family's incarceration in the internment camp of Manzanar - tore them apart.

There are wonderful secondary character touches, many of the supporting characters are fully developed, but all of the narrative comes secondary to the depth of feeling Hicks, cinematographer Robert Richardson, and composer James Newton Howard are able to convey through imagery. The images in the film speak a lot more about the emotion of the piece than any scripted lines and combine movingly with editing and dialog. This is best exemplified by the central romance; Hawke and Kudoh barely share any screen time, but one learns about the depth of their relationship and grows to feel the longing between them to the point of heartache. The story eventually catches up and converges with the atmosphere in the end, making for the perfectly transcendent conclusion to this beautiful work of art.

This is a lush, evocative period piece that takes its time to develop characters and make points about respect and truth and prejudice, consequences and justice. It's a contender for Best Picture and Best Cinematography Oscars. Unfortunately its too slow and rich to draw huge crowds. So the film is a great date movie and a wonderful picture, but probably will only have a limited box office. I would bet on this one having some great legs - it's the kind of film that people will talk about and recommend to others.

Bang for the Buck: Worth full-price to see it on the big screen
Movie Mood: Serious movie
Recommend to friends? Yes

Zatoichi January 10^th, 2000