January 6–13, 2000

movie shorts

Snow Falling on Cedars

Scott Hicks’ adaptation of David Guterson’s novel is a cinematic trophy wife: beautiful, intelligent-seeming but ultimately empty-headed. Gorgeously photographed by Robert Richardson (responsible for most of Oliver Stone’s recent movies), the film opens with a gorgeous sequence in which the roiling sea off Puget Sound, where the water shines blackly in the ominous dark. Two fishing boats pass in the night, and the next day one of the fishermen lies dead, the other, a Japanese-American (Rick Yune), blamed for his murder. Set in the 1950s, the film aims to use the trial, To Kill a Mockingbird style, to probe the aftermath of the WWII internment of Japanese-Americans, surely one of the darkest periods in the country’s history. But despite its ornate style, Snow Falling never gets any more morally complex than telling us that racism against Japanese people is, er, bad. As a journalist (and veteran) who hates the Japs but loves the suspect’s wife (Youki Kudoh), Ethan Hawke is out of his none-too-depth, looking more baffled than concerned. (Maybe he should stick to writing novels.) Hicks, whose Shine had similar style-vs.-substance problems, shoots the whole mess as if he were bringing tablets down from Sinai, which I suppose is great if you’d rather worship than think.

—Sam Adams