Australian director Scott Hicks's Snow Falling on Cedars is far removed from the character-driven, pure storytelling of his previous movie, Shine, and a comparative plunge into moody atmospherics. Action insinuates itself through the director's determined eye for watercolour composition and free-floating perspective, like .. Read more
| Starring | Ethan Hawke, Youki Kudoh, Rick Yune, James Rebhorn |
|---|---|
| Director | Scott Hicks |
| Genres | Drama, Thriller |
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Australian director Scott Hicks's Snow Falling on Cedars is far removed from the character-driven, pure storytelling of his previous movie, Shine, and a comparative plunge into moody atmospherics. Action insinuates itself through the director's determined eye for watercolour composition and free-floating perspective, like random shoots of new growth in an overwhelming rain forest. It's impossible to be complacent as a viewer because Hicks's meditative style paradoxically forces one to locate and make the story happen internally. The approach makes good aesthetic sense in that the story, based on David Guterson's bestselling novel, couches courtroom drama in dreamy textures, and Hicks is determined to reflect that even if it means turning an audience's idea of narrative on its head.
The director gets a lot of help from the weather in the Pacific Northwest: the setting is one of Washington State's San Juan Islands, where rain embraces earth and sky in a singular, introverted personality. There, a Japanese American war hero (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa) stands accused of murdering a white fisherman in the years following World War II. His wife (Youki Kudoh) is the former childhood sweetheart and lover of a local newspaperman (Ethan Hawke) whose bitterness over the loss--as well as his helplessness during the internment of Japanese Americans, and the crusading legacy of his journalist father (Sam Shepard)--prevents him from coming to the defence of the accused man. Layered emotions, layered sensations, layered clouds. This is historical fiction of a sort that works best as an experience of time's relativity: flowing, stopping, trickling. Ironically, the film's most commercial element, the trial, is the least interesting aspect, though old pro Max Von Sydow makes those scenes great fun as a wily defence counsel. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
| Starring | Ethan Hawke, Youki Kudoh, Rick Yune, James Rebhorn, James Cromwell, Eric Thal, Celia Weston |
|---|---|
| Director | Scott Hicks |
| Studio | UCA |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 8 mins |
| Certificate |  |
| Genres | Drama, Thriller |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Dubbed | Czech, German, Italian |
| Subtitles | DVD: Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, German, Greek, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish |
| Released | Production year: 1999 To Rent: DVD: 01 Mar 2010 |
A slow-moving drama of smalltown racial prejudice that lingers on landscapes as much as on the individuals caught up in a courtroom drama of a familiar kind.
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Books v. Films
It is always disappointing when you read a book and the film does not come even close to the book. That is not the case in respect of this film, which really ... read more »
[Highly rated reviewer]
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A thoghtful, beautiful film, but hard to understand.
A difficult film to follow and I think others thought the same as the disc stopped from time to time so other views had backtracked to find out what was ... read more »
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Too Arty
This could have been a great film, but there was too much focus on the cinematography and not enough on the relationships of the characters. It should have been... read more »
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Snow falling on my heart strings, fantastic!
Snow falling on cedars, a film that has everything, never thought that was possible. The thinkings man's movie, it makes you ponder, feel and even cry. I ... read more »
If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the cinema! Kitchen movies are quite the fad right now, what with Waitress on release, and Pixar's Ratatouille at your local car boot(-leg) sale. A remake of the well-liked German film Mostly Martha, No Reservations is a polished, upscale Hollywood romance. The menu may be somewhat predictable, but the presentation is clean, the flavours are simple but sweet, and it has a nice, light texture. Catherine Zeta Jones is Kate, chef at 22 Bleeker Street, a... Read more
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