We searched hard to remember a movie that so masterfully intertwines its deeply personal explorations with the social and political tragedy of the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

We searched hard to remember a movie that so marvelously sets itself in the time bound hot house of a courtroom murder trial of an innocent man judged for his race rather than the facts. The deeper truth is unraveled through the flashback memories of the major characters. These visions reveal not only the facts, but also the warm, beating chambers of the human heart in its darkness as well as its light.

Perhaps, other movies have risen to the level of Snow Falling on Cedars in any one of those categories, but none in the way this evocatively unwinding and haunting film does.

Prejudice and injustice the story brings to light are a part of our human chemistry. As unfortunate as this may be, denying or suppressing that reality will never end its formidable grip on our national, community, and personal lives. We doubt that a war has ever been waged, much less won, without a kind of instinctive vilification of the enemy based on racial, religious, or some other perceived or manufactured difference.

Racial difference, however, is not just the meat of social drama and tragedy. Indeed often, as in this movie, such becomes the spice and enticement for powerful attraction toward lyrical, erotic, and emotional intertwining.

Snow Falling on Cedars has the wisdom, courage, and insight to explore these themes, allowing us to look at their many layered dimensions. A strong finger of blame is pointed at those of us in the United States who fomented or stood by and watched our Japanese brothers and sisters, many of them American citizens, being stripped of their rights and locked up in concentration camps. Still, this point never felt quite like shame, but more like recognition that yes, we do these things, and we must be vigilant.

On an emotional level, Snow Falling on Cedars struck us deeply. Everyone in our audience sat in hushed awe, with only the sound of snuffles evoking falling tears.

The movie is essentially the story of two people, Ishmael (Ethan Hawke) and Hatsue (Youki Kudoh), who were childhood sweethearts and then lovers as teenagers. The war and internment tear them apart, and she sends him a Dear John letter and then marries a stalwart of the Japanese community, Kazuo Miyamoto (Rick Yune). When the war ends and Hatsue and Kazuo return to their home on an Island off Peuget Sound, Kazuo is accused of murdering a man who owned the land that was to be passed to Kazuo. The land dispute is a result of racist policy and sentiment. Ishmael, who inherited the local newspaper from his crusading, just father, a voice against the mistreatment of the Japanese, has discovered evidence that may be exculpatory, but his festering obsession for his lost love holds him from sharing it with the court.

The larger injustice of the internment of the Japanese is contrasted with the biting personal injustice of Hatsue rejecting her American lover. In some sense, she was using him to rebel against the whispered words of her mother to marry a Japanese man with a gentle heart and to stay away from white boys.

The power of this film, however, doesn’t come from the linear retelling of events. Its true magic lies in the amazing skill with which we see the stories behind the stories, and the feelings behind controlled facial expressions. One of the most difficult tasks in all of filmmaking is to take a novel richly based on the feelings and memories of characters and to bring it to life on the screen. The cinematic poetry of the flashbacks allows us to see, to think, and to feel, really feel the entire multi-layered experience of the characters. If ever there is a lesson in how to capture the internal, personal world of the novel in a movie, it is found in Snow Falling on Cedars.

An entire echelon of wonderful actors gave us a feast of those rare moments when people manage to unlock their hearts to the truths that they normally refuse to recognize or to live. What a touching confrontation between Hatsue and her mother. What an agony to watch Hatsue’s father look away from his crying family to hide his breaking heart and the shame that stomps his manhood, his role of a husband, father, and provider when he is unjustly arrested for being Japanese. And what a powerful moment to see how much a young man like Ishmael wants to be a great man like his father.

In the end, we should all look inside the chambers of our hearts to find acceptance, forgiveness, a peace. That might be the only way to find redemption on a course of life fraught with death and tragedy that too often appear like a silent freighter in a fog.

Website

The website for Cedars is one of the best yet for conveying information about the film in a manner completely consistent with the film's moody tone and deeper theme.