The poetically titled drama Snow Falling On Cedars is an exquisitely beautiful piece of cinema, photographed with a loving eye for a harsh landscape.
Unfortunately, the beauty of the piece is only skin deep. The story, plucked from David Guterson's best-selling novel, is presented with such earnestness and such teeth-grinding meticulousness that the film moves with glacial speed.
Which is one way of saying it's beautiful -- but boring.
Not that the story doesn't deal with important issues. Built around the events of a racially-charged murder trial and set in 1950 on an isolated island off the U.S. Pacific Northwest, Snow Falling On Cedars plumbs the racism that struck North America after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.
Japanese-Americans were stripped of their property and possessions and jailed in concentration camps by paranoic government officials. Many fellow citizens fanned the flames of hatred and persecuted any of those who dared speak up on behalf of the oppressed.
The film deals with the aftermath of this in one community, showing what happened in flashback fragments. The catalyst is the return of the son of a Japanese-American family. The man returns to reclaim property promised to his father.
The death of a fisherman kicks the lingering feud into high gear. The murder trial sets the son (Rick Yune) up as the murderer. His lawyer (Max Von Sydow in the film's only exciting and richly layered performance) seems incapable, at first, of discerning the truth.
Meanwhile, a newspaper reporter (Ethan Hawke) hides an important secret. He also has a complicated relationship with the accused man's wife (Youki Kudoh). He has motives.
I'd really like to care. But Scott Hicks, working from a laborious screenplay he co-authored with Hollywood veteran Ron Bass, seems determined to be 'serious' more than provocative.
Hawke's secret, for example, is underplayed, as if it meant less than it does in the plot. The movie is robbed of meaning.
This is a huge surprise, of course, especially because Hicks made his mark with a film that was emotionally supercharged and brilliantly constructed (also with complicated flashbacks). Remember Shine? Hicks has taken a giant step backwards here.
That is not to say the new film is a disaster. It does have an interesting support cast that also includes James Cromwell and even playwright-actor Sam Shepard (playing Hawke's father in flashbacks).
Yet Snow Falling On Cedars lumbers across the screen posing as a film that should be better, more interesting, more energized than it is. In the end, maybe there was just too much snow. It's pretty as a picture, but nothing more.
(This film is rated AA)
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