|
|
March must be the month of Bille August in America. In addition to the
imminent release of the director's newest film Jerusalem (see
related articles in this issue), we already have on our screens Smilla's
Sense of Snow, a film he directed just before Jerusalem. And
more different they couldn't be. For unlike Jerusalem and August's
other best known work like Pelle the Conqueror and The Best
Intentions, this film is a big, slick international production in
English featuring well-known international stars.
Based on the international best seller by Peter Hoeg, Smilla follows the darkly curious character of Smilla Jasperson (Julia Ormond), half Greenlandic Inuit and half American, as she takes it upon herself to investigate the mysterious, accidental death of a 6-year old Inuit boy on the rooftop of her building. Herself having been brought to Copenhagen from Greenland by her American father at the age of 6, Smilla is caught between several cultures and has never fully integrated herself into modern Danish society. To this day she feels, much more comfortable with snow and ice than with people or emotions (which, I should add, poses absolutely no conflict with her day job as a scientist). Nonetheless, Smilla has, over the years, become quite attached to a little boy who lives in her building (whose own mother is alcoholic and negligent) and now, having examined both the pattern of snow on the roof and the boy's footprints, she becomes quite convinced his death was no accident. And so, we're off and running through a typical, thriller-genre maze, hitting the usual marks: a suspicious but terribly good-looking neighbor who says he wants to help (Gabriel Byrne), sleazy police authorities, an even sleazier world-renowned doctor withholding autopsy results, a break-in here, an explosion there, a soft-spoken lunatic who helps with one essential detail (Vanessa Redgrave in one all-too-brief gem of a scene), an egomaniacal bad guy (Richard Harris), and finally, a chase that, predictably, leads Smilla back to her own icy, remote origins in the Arctic waters. |
Download Quicktime preview ( 1.6 mgs ) Download ClearVideo preview ( 436 k ) 
|
|
The problem is, Smilla's Sense of Snow is clearly meant to be more than just a thriller, and this film doesn't get that other level. As a psychological portrait, Smilla is potentially fascinating: complex, dark, troubling. And her obsession with the case is fueled not so much by any high-minded sense of justice but by her own, deeply-rooted cross-cultural anger and confusion. Mind you, these are not easy things to capture in a screenplay (Mr. August said as much himself when we spoke about it), but the casting of Ms. Ormond certainly doesn't help. She is far too glamorous, too pretty, and too sympathetic. Smilla is a prickly and ambiguous character, whose dense, emotional inner life should keep the screen buzzing at every moment, especially during the silences between dialogue. Alas, Ms. Ormond is not up to the task. Director August does succeed brilliantly in one aspect, and it's common to his other films as well: the depiction of raw, elemental nature. Now it's a well-known fact that Arctic peoples have god knows how many different words for our one word "snow" but here, it seems August and his cinematographer Jorgen Persson have found the equivalent number of shades and degrees of blues, grays and whites in their painterly images of Copenhagen in winter. The atmosphere is not just visually striking, it's downright visceral. You can feel the cold down to your toes. It's just a shame these pleasures don't go any deeper than the film's icy surface. Don't get me wrong, Smilla's Sense of Snow is an intelligent, well-made and modestly engaging entertainment. But it won't give you any clue as to why Bille August has garnered top prizes at Cannes. For that, you will have to look to his Swedish films. |
