Snow Falling on Cedars
by Scott Hicks
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DVD details
Actor: Anne Suzuki, Ethan Hawke, Reeve Carney, Rick Yune, Youki KudohDirector: Scott Hicks
Brand: Universal Studios
DVD: 2 Layers, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 2.35:1
Running Time: 128 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-05-30
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Snow Falling on Cedars
DVD Review: Filmmaking at its Indisputable Finest
Summary: 5 Stars
Summing up this movie in a review is, to me, an exercise in futility. Its brilliance can only be appreciated if you take the time to immerse yourself in the film & peel away the layers of this onion yourself.
It'll help if you know, going into this movie, that the story doesn't form a linear timeline. Rather, it intersperses montages of shots from events of the characters' lives spanning many years. It's up to you to build the narrative.
The muted colors, the brilliant yet chilling soundtrack, the snow, the mist... reflect the muted emotions displayed by the characters. The cinematography & the 'floating' feel to most of the shots are so beautiful in & of themselves that you may find yourself easily lost in these brilliant textures. The montages, though argued by some to detract from the continuity of the movie, help draw you into narrative as you interpret each shot & its meaning in the context of the story & of the particular protagonist in the shot. In fact, each shot is so well calculated that upon multiple viewings, you uncover the significance of shots that may have slipped by unnoticed on the first viewing. Some of the brilliance of these montages lie in the way events are juxtaposed; for example, ponder the significance of the shot of Ishmael holding & supporting Hatsue with both of his hands as they walk on logs interspersed on the beach, immediately followed by a shot taken decades later where, in the same setting, Ishmael reaches out with but one hand, ultimately unable to even grasp the now married Hatsue. Heart-wrenching. Or the interspersion of Hatsue's words, in her 'final letter' to Ishmael, ringing in Ishmael's ears as he inevitably (or did he choose to?) becomes a part of war events that leave him wounded... ultimately leaving him with a permanent indelible scar that he can only associate, for the rest of his life, to the loss of his love.
While the story itself has many elements, including those of racism (& one of America's darkest most shameful moments in history: the rounding up & internment of Japanese during World War II), greed, the fragility of friendships, acceptance, etc., the heart of the story revolves around the tragedy of unrequited love, and the turning point often necessary for each & every one of us to overcome some obstacle or obsession in our lives. In that sense, the movie itself is a brilliant character study; however, know that while the story really only has one main protagonist (Ishmael), you are really able to understand & feel the emotions of almost every character in this movie (each actor/actress exudes that much brilliance).
Suffice it to say: one could enjoy this movie for years & years to come. I myself have found that watching it again every now and then allows me to interpret the actions & thoughts of the characters somewhat differently almost every time, based largely upon my own personal growth from past events and/or events in my life that have transpired since my last viewing. It's as much a story of personal growth & acceptance as it is a story of letting go. Almost anyone will be able to empathize with, if not even personally identify with on some level, the protagonists of this film. And a movie/story that can engage & touch you the way this movie does is nothing short of incredible.
On a very related side note: I find it an absolute travesty that this movie has not been released on Blu-Ray. Not only that, but now the DVD has also been discontinued? It's a crime to let a work of art of this magnitude slip into the shadows. Is there any way we can vote for this to be released on Blu-Ray?
DVD Review: Lost in the dark cedars
Summary: 2 Stars
I found this movie to be rather interesting but the fact that almost the whole movie was so dark ruined it for me.This is a problem in a great many movies and can't understand why.DVD Review: The Good & Bad Of 'Cedars'
Summary: 4 Stars
I was totally blown away and dazzled at the fabulous cinematography in thss film. Man, this is one of the prettiest movies I've ever seen and would love to see it on a sharp Blu-Ray disc.
I also enjoyed the two lawyers in this film, played by James Rebhorn and Max VonSydow. Sometimes those two were riveting to watch.
But, to be frank, most of the story was anything but riveting, way too slow and with way too much time used on flashbacks. This story could have been told in a much more presentable way which could have kept the audience's attention. It's also a little too politically-correct. We were beaten over the head with the prejudice against Japanese. Everyone here, except the Liberal newspaper editor and his son, is portrayed as extremely bigoted.
Overall, a spectacular visual film - one of the best ever - but a biased story that takes interminably long to tell.
DVD Review: Snow Falling on Cedars
Summary: 5 Stars
excellent story involving atrocities suffered by the Japanese at the hands of ignorance and the us govt.
scenery is spactacular!
DVD Review: layers upon layers of ghosts
Summary: 5 Stars
The movie is about ghosts.
First, the ghost of the dead fisherman and the trial of the Japanese-American accused of his murder.
Second, the ghost of a long ago childhood forbidden love affair between the small town newspaper editor/publisher's son and the now-wife of the accused.
Third, the ghost of Pearl Harbour, WWII and the racial prejudice that resulted in the concentration camps for Japanese Americans.
The three ghosts are completely twisted together, the newspaper editor can't move on from his childhood love, the community can not rise above the racial profiling it engages it.
It's a depressing, period piece, sad with the quiet street full of Japanese-Americans, now war hysteria internees walking down the small town's mail street to be ferried to Manzanar for the duration of WWII. The movie is at least 75% flashbacks, it is very non-linear, very literary, not your usual movie fare. There are two heroes, the defense lawyer and the small town publisher, but they are completely overwhelmed by the masses of people demanding that something be done. But the story is not about them, it is about the two main characters, moving on and letting go of their old ghosts.
This movie, like movies such as Farewell to Manzanar, are necessary to dispose of our society's old ghosts. Showing them in the light of what happened, and hopefully why it happened, in order that it won't happen again. Ghosts don't seem to die if you just ignore them, bury them away and try to forget. Just as he has to forget his childhood love, understand that she is married and has a life of her own without him, the island people have to come to grips with the fact that they transported their friends and neighbors to camps in the hysteria of the moment. Every WWII movie i see, i ask the question of "how could the good Germans not know, not fight the evil around them?". This movie partly answers that question with the answer of "it happened here and very few spoke up", the scene of their transportation by ferry will be as rememberable as all those scenes of German Jews marched to their death. This scene is the climax of the movie, moving, saddening, and i'm afraid all too true and prone to be repeated each generation, only with different faces and different "reasons".
The music, the cinemagraphy, the plot and literary basis, the acting, all well above average, very well integrated and deeply moving.
Description of Snow Falling on Cedars
New - ShrinkwrappedAustralian director Scott Hicks's follow-up to his widely beloved Shine comes as a small shock. Based on David Guterson's bestselling novel, Snow Falling on Cedars is far removed from the character-driven, pure storytelling of Shine and a comparative plunge into moody atmospherics. Action insinuates itself through the director's determined eye for watercolor 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 Guterson's story 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. He also 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 (Rick Yune) 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 defense 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 defense counsel. --Tom Keogh
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