Friday 2 January 2015

Snow Falling on Cedars (1999 Scott Hicks)

Young Reeve Carney and Anne Suzuki (who's fabulous) grow up to be Ethan Hawke and Yûki Kudô, whose husband is accused of murdering a local fisherman. Japanese internment during war may be behind it.

Great senior cast in Max Von Sydow, Richard Jenkins, James Cromwell and Sam Shepherd. Film is pieced together in beautiful bits, shot by Robert Richardson and edited by Hank Corwin (Tree of Life, The New World) who seems to be using frames of black as punctuation (at times, anyway). I liked James Newton Howard's music.

It slightly lacks emotion though and I wonder if the mosaic structure is partly responsible for that. It was based on the 1994 novel by Dave Guterson and adapted by Ronald Bass and Hicks (Shine, The Boys are Back).

Minor carp: I would have liked to have known where and when we were at the outset.

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