Product: Snow Falling on Cedars (2000)
Rating: 5.0
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.