Cold Mountain tells a story happened during American Civil War:

Rating: 7/10 (29 March 2005)

Cold Mountain tells a story happened during American Civil War: Young Inman(Jude Law) fell in love with beautiful Ada(Nicole Kidman) in a place called Cold Mountain. But Inman decided to leave and fight with the Confederate Army when the civil war broke out. As the years pass, Ada struggles on her deceased father's farm with Ruby (Renne Zellweger), a doughty girl who assisted Ada along way, they had to work extremely hard to survive from the harsh environment and protect themselves from the Home Guards bullies who left behind the war. Meanwhile injured Inman received a letter from Ada and he realized that he had enough pointless slaughter, so he tried to go back to his spiritual land- Cold Mountain and beloved Ada. Inman had to walk through the dangerous and unstable south, cross the mountains without let the pursuing Union Army find him. On the way of his unforgettable and perilous odyssey, he met a lone line of interesting people who suffered from the war in different ways. When finally Inman arrived to Cold Mountain and married Ada, an irreparable tragedy happened: Inman lost his life during a conflict with the Home Guards, but Ada faced her miserable future bravely with her friends. The movie clearly expressed its theme- the ruthlessness of the brutal war by showing audience two different parts' stories: the journey of Inman and Ada's hard life back in Cold Mountain. Examples: On the way home, Inman suffered from starvation, injuries and frustration; Back in Cold Mountain, Ada the genteel intellectual had to face the real world on her own for the very first time, all she could do was to create the refuge herself or to die. The story contains some interesting characters that have distinctive personalities. E.g. a beautiful and well educated young lady was forced to run a farm, something she knows absolutely nothing, she was waiting to die in the beginning, was fortunately saved scrappy Ruby. And then she turns 180 and shown great determination to survive. There are some people like Ada in the real life: could be very depressive in a special moment, but when once activated by someone or something, they could change the way of attitude and do really well. Obviously, Ada's special personality made the story more interesting and extend-able; the next good example should be Ruby, she has a resisting personality, it shown by her dialogs like "oh, I am better than any men!" and actress' great performance like her complex emotion when found her father has been shot. So Ruby was also an important role of connecting and extending stories. The movie used some remarkable techniques such as the repeating of flashback in the beginning, it shows the huge difference between the life in Cold Mountain and the life that Inman is having in the war. It worked with actor's incredible performance to made audience feel stronger of character's situation and created a sense of horror which could immediately draw audience' attention to the film. It also symbols how serious the movie is; cross cutting has been largely used through out the movie, it created the special structure of the film: starts with flash back, and then tells two different parts of story at the same time by kept cutting forth and back. The director used this structure was probably it deferred to the original form the story: the novel Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. And it also successfully reinforced the meaning of the movie: on both side, they were all suffering but not giving up.
There were also some impressive scenes in the movie: Scene one: when Ruby's father realized that Home Guards were came to kill them, he chose to play and sing a real nice song and hopes to soften their hearts. The pace of the scene was so slow in the beginning but was sudden turns to fast when the singing plan fails- they shot two members of the band. After that, the pace slowed right down and long still shots were used again to emphasis the death. it made the scene so shocking! Scene two: In the last part, whole "family" was sitting around the table, they were the survivors and everything seemed great. But from their faces, audiences could easily tell that none of them is happy, because they've all lost something from the war, things those will never come back. It once again strongly reinforced the powerful meaning of the movie and highlighted the main theme: ruthlessness of the war.
Over all, I think it is a great movie and I really enjoyed watching it. Excellent acting performance, vivid personalities of characters, refined camera shots all linked by a nice storyline. The only regret I left was the pace of whole movie; it seemed a bit too slow to tell such a story. But anyway, this is good movie to watch. Recommended to everyone who interests in the movie.