Sumptuous, Sensual, Romantic -- It's Gone With The Wind All Over Again!

Rating: 4/10 (1 June 2004)

Wonderful, rousing story of true love with a tragic ending. Jude Law is haunting as Inman, the brooding, sexy mountain boy who gets pulled into the dying Confederacy's hopeless struggle. Nicole Kidman is luminous as Ada, the sheltered but courageous southern lady left behind on a dying farm, who learns to survive in the most trying circumstances. And Renee Zellweger is absolutely irresistible as Ruby, the poor white girl with the heart of gold who goes from scorning and teasing Ada to being her best friend and most loyal companion.
It's very pleasant, this movie, as long as you don't look below the surface. If you love these characters enough as individuals, you can ignore the historical surroundings. Hollywood has been making this kind of movie ever since GONE WITH THE WIND. You know, the sufferings of the good and noble southern people during the Civil War. But black people are invisible. The idea that Ada is brave and plucky for learning how to pluck her own chickens is cute and sweet -- until you realize that for years black children went hungry so she could eat. No one wants to make a movie about that!
Chris Rock tried to make some of these points at the Oscars a few years back, but Sean Penn (that well known liberal) shouted him down, showing his true colors once again as the classic playground bully. Why is it that Hollywood, the most liberal town in America, still wants to make movies like Gone With The Wind? They talk about how brave they are, (and I'm talking to you, George Clooney) defying racism in their talk and attitudes, but the movies they make reflect a very different reality. There's nothing in COLD MOUNTAIN to suggest that slavery was wrong, that blacks suffered, or that lovely young creatures like Ada and Inman have anything to apologize for.
Wouldn't this story have worked just as well in Nazi Germany? Outside of Stalingrad, 1943, there is a noble German infantryman named Innmann. Of course he has never heard about the Fuhrer's plans for the Jews! But when his beloved Gretchen writes him that the family farm is failing he makes the pure, noble, humanistic decision to desert his comrades and head home at once. On he treks, nobly crossing five thousand miles of Russian steppes in the dead of winter, fighting it out with hateful, misguided Russian partisans who insist on trying to kill him. (They just don't understand.) Finally, on the outskirts of Berlin, he is gunned down just short of his goal by -- oh, the tragic irony! the literary brilliance! -- a callow, overzealous member of the Hitler Youth.
A three hour movie about the sufferings of a Confederate soldier does not make it in my book. Inman got what he deserved. "Those who deny freedom to others do not deserve it for themselves, and under a just God cannot long maintain it." ABRAHAM LINCOLN