Glacially slow, cliched, messy and uninteresting.

Rating: 4/10 (2 August 2004)

This movie talks about the civil war. The main downfall of the movie are the numerous pointless scenes.
Do not get me wrong. In general, I enjoy slow movies - if they are well done. i.e. I loved 'The gaze of Ulysse's' and 'Das Boot', both extremely long movies that tell quite a simple story. However, the longer scenes in those movies aid characterisation and immersion. The scenes in 'Cold mountain' are one of the following types:
1. The heroine's voice reciting love letters to her love. 2. Pointless scenes of havoc and violence. 3. Depiction of unbelievable cruelty by the 'villains' 4. The hero wandering around.
This is all packaged with very badly thought out characterisations and motifs that follow really trite cliche's.
During the course of this overlong movie, nothing is learnt of the protagonists. I felt no empathy for them, or for their quest. The letter-reciting is particularly loathsome and does not add *anything at all* to the movie. Also, no matter how many times you show the hero not letting himself to the pleasures of another woman, or how many times he looks at her picture, it does not make us feel that he loves the heroine.
A lot of characters are introduced quite briefly. Given that this movie is so long, it would have been better had the characters been given some more time to develop rather than have all this letter reciting. Maybe it is better that they are not, since all of their lines are just patronising monologues.
This movie has no romance, no interest and no soul.