Herald rating: * * * *
Running time: 130 mins
Rental: Now
Review: Ewan McDonald
A complex film about a high school romance and its sequel at a murder trial almost a decade later. Ishmael (Ethan Hawke) is the son of the newspaper editor in a Pacific Northwest town; Hatsue (Youki Kudoh) is the daughter of Japanese-Americans.
They meet at the time of Pearl Harbor. Feelings run high against Japanese in smalltown America: Ishmael's father (Sam Shepard) may write that: "These people are our neighbours," but the US government is seizing their property and trucking them off to internment camps.
Nine years later, Ishmael is a reporter at the paper, covering a murder trial. The defendant is Kazuo (Rick Yune), the man Hatsue married in the camp, accused of the murder of a local fisherman with whom he has a bad history.
The outcome of the trial could change many lives. If Kazuo is guilty, the lovers might be reunited. Ishmael wants that, but does Hatsue?
How does this colour his coverage of the trial? Hatsue married Kazuo under pressure from her parents. Does she love him? Is he guilty?
Director Scott Hicks' first film since Shine, the Oscar-winning story of pianist David Helfgott, Snow Falling on Cedars is a slowly unfolding tale that is at once gentle and brutal.
<i>Video:</i> Snow Falling On Cedars
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