Product: Snow Falling on Cedars (2000)
Rating: 4.0
The rare thing of freeing yourself from an obsession
Once upon a time, before the attack on Pearl Harbor to be specific, young Ishmael Chambers (Ethan Hawke), the son of editor (Sam Shepard) of the local newspaper in a small town in the Pacific Northwest fell in love with Hatsue (Youki Kudoh), the daughter of a Japanese American family. Put then Pearl Harbor happens and despite editorials reminding everybody what it means to be an American, all of the Japanese in the area have their property confiscated and are bussed off to the Manzanar concentration camp (that was the term used back them). The twist of fate in "Snow Falling on Cedars," the 1999 film based on the novel by David Guterson, is that in 1951 Ishmael is running his father's newspaper and finds himself covering a murder trial in which the accused is Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune), the man Hatsue married in the camp."Snow Falling on Cedars" is a film that combines a love triangle with a murder trial, but the character who is really on the spot is Ishmael. The trial has to do with the death of a fisherman, whose corpse turns up in the nets of another boat. The deceased had just bought the property that Kazuo's family had been planning to buy but the war and prejudice combined to deny them the property. The prosecutor (James Rebhorn) sees clear motive and Kazuo provides the opportunity. Most importantly, Kazuo is Japanese, and even if he fought for the U.S. Army in the war that is not enough to outweigh his race with the locals, even if the judge (James Cromwell) is clearly disgusted by the implications and Kazuo's attorney is the local sage and voice of reason (Max Von Sydow). But for Ishmael the trial is more personal and you know he is thinking that if Kazuo is convicted that he might have another chance with Hatsue. Besides, the evidence looks compelling, at least until Hatsue takes the stand and defends her husband.The over racism of the people of this small town both during and after the war is quite disturbing, even though director Scott Hicks does not overplay his hand. Hicks attempts some ambitious ways of telling this story, where he uses a variety of visual styles to convey the different perspectives and realities. The effect is somewhat reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon," intentionally so to my mind, since both films deal with how we each have our own perspectives on reality. The result is that we become convinced of Kazuo's innocence and wonder when Ishmael will not only come to the same conclusion but act upon it, for it is clear he is the pivotal figure in the tale.The title of this film has a definite sense of the poetic, and Hicks does a nice job of capturing both the poetic and the sense of a real community that was divided long before the war started (when the Japanese Americans are relocated we see one side of the school bus is empty, because they always sat on one side of the bus). Ishmael had proposed to Hatsue and the way the war altered their lives is obvious, as is the great injustice of it all, so Ishmael can hardly be faulted for wanting things back the way they almost were.Ultimately, I appreciate the great irony that the true American in the story is Nels Gudmundsson, the lawyer played by Max Von Sydow. His character immigrated to the United States and when he defends Kazuo there is a constant current of rage and anger in every thing he says and does in court because the people of this town are rejecting all of the values and principles that made him come to this country. When he tells Ishmael "It takes a rare thing, a turning point, to free oneself from any obsession, be it prejudice or hate, or, even love," we know that we have heard the moral of the story and that Ishmael will finally be moved to action.My only problem with "Snow Falling on Cedars" is, I think, clearly my own problem. My outrage over the treatment of the Japanese was such that the love of Ishmael and Hatsue, and even the trial of Kazou seem so trivial in comparison. Even a verdict of innocence is the proverbial example of too little too late. Then ago, part of the point here is that neither these characters nor the country deserve to be left off the hook for what it did to its own citizens.