Snow Falling on Cedars

This is probably the worst movie I have ever seen in my life, and the first video rental that made me and a buddy push the fast-forward button more than three times. When you have two religious viewers show the most emotion when a character swears at his former love while losing a limb, you know the movie is really bad. Snow falling on cedars has way too many shots of snow actually falling on cedars. And snow falling on the ground. And people talking like they are watching snow falling. Soooo boring. Believe me, it is much better to simply sit in front of your apartment window and watch the snow actually fall then to waste money renting this movie.

Beautiful paint, granted. But still taking ages to dry. One day I'll find myself bored enough to watch this to the end and I'll find out the verdict (if there is one). The most tedious parts are the 'young love' scenes - if intended to be erotic, they fail - and the Japanese internment sequence just induces mild pity, not anger or shame. SFOC just puts style before entertainment, and in the end it's just a super-glorified courtroom drama. There also seem to be loads of eclectic cinematic references, eg playing chess with Max Von S, and others mentioned below - but why? This seems to be an admission that the film can't sustain itself as a straightforward story, so that they put in stuff for movie buffs to amuse themselves with in the meantime. And how come these fishermen are so good-looking? No, sorry, this film is simply overwrought.

source: Snow Falling on Cedars

This movie is so slow that I had time to figure out each and every plot twist. Art does not have to be boring. The director Scott Hicks is trying real hard to be Ingmar Bergman and he fails badly. I believe in watching a film from the beginning to the very end but I really wanted to walk out of this one half way. The scenes are all so slow that you have time to figure them out and jump the the surprise twist before it happens. All the interesting bits are shown in jump cuts and the dull bits are left on the screen until you want to scream. If you want to see an interesting movie with lots of snow go to Fargo. A friend of mine walked out and asked me the next day how it ended. I asked her go guess. And she told me her what she thought the ending was. And she was right! "Bad art is bad for the soul." Oscar Wilde

This is a total disappointment! I had read and liked aspects of the book. But what a piece of overworked crap the film has turned out to be! Cedars apes the form of the European art movie: lots of beautiful tracking shots, soft lighting, precious landscapes, and long lingering closeups of emotionally pained actors - all of which (in this film) add up to exactly zero. There is nothing original or genuine here. Everything is mannered. With the exception perhaps of the strategically cast Max Von Sydow, everything here is a waste. Cedars is nothing more than an attempt to export pacific-west coast scenery within a pretentious constructed politically correct package. Everyone involved with this movie (with the exception of Max) should be put on trial for fraud!

An American man is found dead and the question is was he murdered by a white man or was his death an accident ? But maybe a better question would been how can anyone make such a dire film ? Okay dire is maybe too strong a word but SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS is a very boring film badly structured . The victim`s body is found then the action ( I use the word action in in its loosest sense ) cuts to the trial , then cuts back to a character more than 20 years ago , then moves forward to 9 years ago during the second world war. What this all means is we`re not introduced to the characters properly which makes for a very uninvolving film . It also leaves me at a loss as to what genre the film falls into , it`s not a court room drama , or a romance , or a war film . What is it then ? A good cure for insomnia I guess

This is one of those films that needs to be seen a second time to pick up on the subtleties of the plot. It is a feast for the eyes and features outstanding acting. It also has a sense of balance. It doesn't manipulate its viewer. The murder mystery isn't one that brings in forces that threaten the main character. The forces are prejudice and fear. The adversaries are not people carrying guns but rather the legal system that often overlooked the rights of people of another race or ethnic background. The internment camps are part of the backdrop. I know that people say this is slow, but so is the process these people faced. I loved the intellectual character of the young man who has to look past his own feeling and try to bring closure to someone he will never be able to have. The transitions are so breathtaking. The winter scenes are a portrait of softness and violence. My wife had read the book upon which this is based and said that the movie might be interesting. Apparently, the producers were unwilling to go the extra mile to get this noticed. It's a gem and deserves to be on a list of very fine movies.

It is a pity that one of the very few Hollywood films that deal with the plight of Japanese- Americans during WWII should, though based on a fairly good novel, descend to such extraordinary lengths to "prove" that the incarceration of innocent people is a national disgrace. You would think that an intelligent audience might be trusted to know this without having it explained to death, and that it would need none of the self-indulgent, frequently manipulative "pathos" that mars this extremely kitschy film. Some of it is good. Much of it is so mistrustful of its audience that nothing--not even the deportation of the Japanese to concentration camps--can be depicted without a heavy-handed, editorializing musical score that owes more to Karl Orff than it contributes to the dramatic situation. Some of the performances, particularly that of Sam Sheperd, are excellent. The direction, the editing, are embarrassingly derivative. Characters are either impossibly noble and likable or so unambiguously dreadful that you wonder their neighbors allowed them to go on living. There is no middle ground. Shades of gray, absent from the director's mind, are nowhere to be found in his film. Ultimately there is nothing here but a second-rate film director exhibiting his unwillingness to let the material speak for itself. The movie should be awarded a prize for the most intrusively manipulative musical score in recent film history.

CAUTION, POSSIBLE SPOILERS. Love story, murder mystery, war drama, family conflict and to top it off prejudice and racism. A top notch cast: Ethan Hawke, Max Von Sydow, Youki Kudoh, James Cromwell, Richard Jenkins, Rick Yune, Eric Thal, Sam Shephard, James Rebhorn, and Celia Weston star in SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS, a superb drama directed with sensitivity by Scott Hicks. This film offers a lot to people who love movies about people. There is war action and romance, but no macho, unrealistic steroid kings, and no blonde bimbos decorating the screen. Instead there is a secret interracial teenaged romance that takes place inside a wet cedar tree, shrouded in the misty and sopping weather of Washington state. Since they were children, Ishmael Chambers, a white boy and Hatsue Imada, a Japanese born girl, have been playmates. I found this friendship powerful. There is nothing like falling in love with someone you played with on the beach as a child. As their friendship continues over the course of years, they become young lovers, terrified that their parents will discover and put an end to their relationship. Hatsue's mother wants her to marry a Japanese man, and Ishmael's mother worries that her son is heading down the road to heartbreak, because in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor and the South Pacific events, a relationship like this is doomed. The prose of the film is graceful, as we are treated to flashbacks of the childhoods and teen years of Ishmael and Hatsue. In the present, a Japanese fisherman is accused of murdering a white fisherman of German decent. The crime drama, courtroom drama, and flashbacks of war and love all blend smoothly to tell an original and wonderful story. As well as love, prejudice and heartache, we have a twist that involves obsession. All of it ties in together. The acting is first rate. Hawke, as usual, portrays his character with soulfulness and gracefulness. He gives the adult Ishmael, a damaged but not bitter man a sense of dignity. Other standouts are Von Sydow as an aging defense attorney who has tremendous compassion, and Rebhorn as a semi-venomous prosecutor in the murder case. The cinematography is beautiful. The score by James Newton Howard can only be described by me as "achingly" beautiful. His music seems to breathe emotion into the scenes. I can't say enough about what a great, touching film this is!!! A++++++

Just as the book was rather too self-consciously 'literary' - desperately over-written and in need of drastic editing - so the film indulges itself in luscious, dazzling photography to tell a thin story. There are just too many beautiful shots that say nothing: it's more of a filmic coffee table book than the work of a true film-maker. And this hides the fact that, while the story is an important one, its treatment here is superficial, sentimental, trite and predictable. A lot of talent has gone to waste on self-indulgent twaddle that never rises above the level of a TV mini-series.