Smilla's Sense of Snow

Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997), directed by Bille August

Smilla's Sense of Snow is one of the best movie titles of 1997: the title itself, not the movie. True, it does have a very sibilant alliteration to it, but the title perfectly describes both the plot and the attitude of the film. Smilla Jaspersen (Julia Ormond), a Danish woman, does have a sense of snow. She is an expert on various forms of frozen water, as well as being ice-cold herself. The movie, which made hellishly cold winter look better than any other film in recent memory, also has a sense of snow.

Smilla is a loner who viciously bites out at all who would approach her. Ormond admirably resists the temptation to temper the character with sympathy making her instead into a woman as icy and cold as the snow she studies in laboratories.

One day, Smilla's neighbor Isaiah (Clipper Miano), a young boy, dies after falling off their apartment building's roof. Since she believes the police postmortem investigation is incompentent, Smilla strikes out on an investigation of her own. It seems the boy, a native of Greenland, has some connections to a mining company which is covering up some odd secrets, and may be responsible for the boy's death.

Smilla's belief that she is on to something is confirmed as she is followed by a trail of destruction. Worryingly, people around her are constantly getting killed. Is it because she is sloppy in her work, or because her neighbor (Gabriel Byrne) who is investigating the case with her is actually a mole of the mining company? The trail leads to Greenland and the most implausible of all possible film endings, something straight out of The X-Files. Perhaps it worked out better in the original novel than it does in the film.

The movie is really nothing more than a standard conspiracy/coverup thriller with a very strange resolution. The film's trappings, however, are excellent. As stated, Julia Ormond creates a very strong leading figure, if a totally unpleasant one. For once, the rogue investigator is played by a woman instead of a man. Perhaps the level of estrangement inherent in having a woman in such a role makes the men in the audience realize what slimeballs such rogue investigators often are. The unusual nature of Ormond's character is enhanced by flashbacks with show she had an obsession, somewhere between the maternal and the sexual with young Isaiah. The fact that the film bombed at the box-office, however, will go on to ensure that such a non-traditional role probably won't find its way to the screen in the near future.

The remainder of the cast consists mostly of respected European actors. Richard Harris is the drily evil company executive, Tom Wilkinson (The Full Monty) is a menacing doctor, Peter Capaldi (Local Hero) a swinging bachelor, and Vanessa Redgrave a religion-obsessed retiree. Gabriel Byrne is well-cast as Smilla's morose, lumpish neighbor: he fits the type better than he does as a leading man. Of all the cast, Robert Loggia as Smilla's father seems most out of place. In a film with so many different European accents, why such an unmistakably American one?

The highlight of the film is the cinematography by Jorgen Persson which is, quite simply, the finest I've seen in any film since Schindler's List. Scenes of snow-covered mountains, endless frozen seas, a dirty Copenhagen, all are breath-takingly beautiful in this film. Nearly every shot of the film is a work of art worthy of being framed and put on display. One waits anxiously for Persson's lighting of director August's next feature, the upcoming Les Miserables.

The music, by Harry Gregson-Williams and Hans Zimmer is another highlight, complimenting both the plot and the beautiful images. With such fine individual elements and an interesting cast, it is a pity that director August had such a bizarre screenplay to begin with. A murder coverup mystery should remain such and should avoid turning into a half-hearted H.P. Lovecraft imitation.

Two-and-a-half stars