Smilla's Sense of Snow

Starring:Ona Fletcher, Julia Ormond, Agga Olsen, Patrick Field, Matthew Marsh, Gabriel Byrne, Jim Broadbent, Tom Wilkinson, Charlotte Bradley, Richard Harris, Charles Lewsen, Robert Loggia, Emma Croft, Bob Peck, Ann Queensberry, Vanessa Redgrave, David Hayman, Ida Julie Andersen, Maliinannguaq Markussen-Molgard, Alvin Ing
Director: Bille August
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Based on a much-praised 1992 bestseller by Peter Hoeg, Smilla's Sense of Snow is a film of moody power and boundless mystery in its first half, but it becomes an overblown, conspiracy-laden schlock thriller in its second. Julia Ormond stars as the half-Inuit, Greenland native of Hoeg's book, a loner who is supported by an emotionally ambivalent father (Robert Loggia) in Copenhagen. Apparently perceived as a troublemaker who sees secret plots everywhere, Smilla finds herself largely alone in an effort to discover what really happened to a six-year-old Inuit boy who fell (or jumped) off the roof of her apartment building. Somewhat aided by an ambiguous neighbor (Gabriel Byrne), Smilla investigates a connection between the child's death and the misdeeds of a mining company, a story hook that conveniently ratchets up the action but quickly dissipates the more compelling, introspective intrigue of the film's beginning. Ormond is fascinating, somehow more beautiful than usual through her emphasis of her character's destabilizing conflicts (isolation and a possibly unhinged intelligence). But she isn't done any favors by an unreliable script or by the usually superb Danish director Bille August's chronic problems working in English-language films (including his disastrous The House of the Spirits). The DVD edition of this film includes an original theatrical trailer and a short feature on the making of the production. --Tom Keogh

Description

Based on the best-selling novel this gripping, suspenseful thriller about a headstrong woman who uses her uncanny knowledge of ice and snow to unravel a taut web of lies and intrigue. When her six-year old neighbor falls from a snow covered roof, Smilla suspects the boys death was no accident. Together with a mysterious lover, who holds secrets of his own, she defies local authorities and begins a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in an effort to uncover the truth.

Customer Reviews:

Read the book first..........2007-07-01

This is a great, literal adaptation of Peter Hoeg's novel of the same name. I recommend reading the book first because it is absolutely wonderful. The film follows the novel almost to the letter and Julia Ormond just captures Smilla perfectly. I liked Gabriel Byrne in the supporting role, but his eccentricities seem a little toned down for the movie. Overall, I think the movie is great! Enjoy.

Finding "Ice" in Justice.......2007-06-25

Isaiah Christiansen (Clipper Miano), a beautiful Inuit boy, died prematurely. According to police, the six-year-old suffered an accidental fall from unsupervised play on the rooftop of his low income, multi-story Copenhagen apartment building where he lived with his recently widowed mother, Juliane (Agga Olsen), a lapsed alcoholic. As we watch the camera pan the malnourished body of the lifeless boy, lying facedown in a crimson pool of blood, sickingly paled by the steely twilight of a Midwinter Danish sky, his neighbor, Smilla Jaspersen (Julia Ormand), will be caught off guard at the horror about to greet her upon returning home from work as an underemployed research scientist specializing in the microscopic analysis of snow, a poor substitute for her self-destructed academic career. Reclusive and rebellious, Smilla, befriended Isaiah reluctantly, out of compassion of his father's untimely death and his mother's neglect, finding an immediate empathetic connection with the mop-headed toddler. It belied her usual sullen and misanthropic persona. Smilla "lost" her mother (Maliinannguaq Markussen-Mølgård in flashback) at his age, fatally consumed by frigid Arctic melt waters, in contrast to the cold indifference of the bottle. She succumbed to her watery fate, instantly, when her kayak, overloaded with catch, catastrophically capsized. Seeing Isaiah's delicate, fractured frame splayed on the frozen ground, Smilla seethes inwardly, but is visibly shaken. She climbs the unit's spiral staircase up the building's open foyer to the rooftop and is immediately drawn toward Isaiah's snowy footfalls, which trace a pernicious beeline to the void beyond the railess edges. She intuits the deaf boy's fear of heights, and subsequent 'fall,' could not have been the result of playful mishap. Voicing her suspicions to supercilious investigators at the scene, Smilla returns to her apartment, heartbroken, haunted by memories of Isaiah that loop in her mind like possessed videotape. A scrambled audiotape, carefully concealed by Isaiah in the building's vestibule, however, will play a stalking role in this story. Isaiah was the only soul able to conquer Smilla's affections, and he did so in a most unusual love match, consisting of tearful, hot baths and unlikely interest in her whimsical tales of real and imaginary numbers--of forlorn fractions pining for equilibrium and aliquant fractions receding, indivisibly, into the hidden realm. Smilla loves mathematics and geometry, and her stories liberated them, if only temporarily, from their intolerable urban confinement, which the darkly beautiful, half-Inuit native Greenlander, particularly loathes. Long dependent on the beneficence of her American father, physician Moritz Jaspersen (Robert Loggia), a matter that has incited angst in her mother's feckless successor, Benja (Emma Croft), several years her junior, Smilla barely tolerates her father's late middle-aged fantasy, a youthful trophy and unabashed gold-digger. Mutual enmity will ensnare Smilla and Benja in a grim, cat-and-mouse game with the authorities (Matthew Marsh as the Detective and Patrick Field as the Police Officer) bent on extinguishing Smilla's fiery pursuit of the truth underlying Isaiah's fate. Notwithstanding, Smilla's Inuit duty is to avenge Isaiah's death and make someone, or something, pay for it, and ease his restive spirit, setting it free from the authorities' callous disregard of facts. She vows to right this wrong before Christmas, which she refuses to celebrate, resolving to never again summon failure into her life.

Before Koji Suzuki's The Ring trilogy and companion short story, Dark Water, Peter Hoeg's 1992 bestselling novel, Smilla's Sense of Snow, was adapted into a feature film in 1997, by producers Bernd Eichinger, Rosanne Korenberg, and Martin Moszkowicz. Screenwriter Ann Biderman and director Bille August breathed cinematic life into Hoeg's gripping tale. Like the spate of recently released, psychological thrillers, Smilla's Sense of Snow, remastered and distributed by 20th Century Fox for DVD in 2002, plumbs the icy depths of distraught, broken families--particularly disaffected, abused, and neglected children. The surrogate parents who fill-in--usually unexpectedly or reluctantly--do so as de facto role models, often atoning as much for their own "sins" as those of their charges' natural parents. Like Suzuki's ghostly tomes, splashes of alchemy and metaphysics infuse Smilla in an intoxicating blend of Western Apocalyptic mythology and Eastern animism, positing an ever-flowing cycle of spiritual inhabitation of Inuit souls, and all phenomena. This volatile mixture, echoed in Smilla's diverse heritage, also fuels her inner turmoil. The film's opening sequence, shown in flashback, metaphorically foreshadows this in a conflagration of fire and ice, in an astronomical event that rocked 19th Century Greenland. The scene is described to Smilla, later, in a narrative reading from St. John's Revelation, serendipitously opened in a Bible owned by a late-in-life called nun, Elsa Lübing (Vanessa Redgrave), who recounts how a "fallen star" (meteorite) plowed into the Earth, and bored a "bottomless" pit into the bowels of the frozen Artic, as witnessed by a doomed Inuit hunter (Ono Fleischer, no relation). During her interview with Lübing, Smilla confirms the born again "bride of Jesus" worked as an account manager at the Greenland Mining Company (GMC). In her former life, she co-signed the concern's pension payments and award letter to Isaiah's mother, Juliane, adding a personal note of sympathy into its margins, following the mysterious death of her husband in glacial melt water, with Isaiah at his side, while away at a company excavation.

Gabriel Byrne plays "The Mechanic," another neighbor of Isaiah's who, like Smilla, loved the boy, and mourns him deeply. With atypically "clean hands" and aplomb The Mechanic assists Smilla, fortuitously popping into her fray with the authorities when matters heat-up, and providing her with sage advice on how to proceed with her investigation. Smilla suspects he is hiding something, but she is, at once, attracted to, and daunted by, his shadowy character and appearances. Theirs is a mostly off-again/on-again romance. Superb cameo performances by Jim Broadbent as Dr. Langermann, who conducted Isaiah's autopsy, and whom Smilla learns was surreptitiously replaced midstream by Professor Loyen (Tom Wilkinson), a Greenland Mining physician, under the direction of GMC's leader, Dr. Andreas Tork (the late Richard Harris), for whom snow and ice, too, plays a definitive role, aptly contribute to the plot, drawing Smilla back to her native Greenland. Some have faulted the film's latter half for being overly action-oriented, but such forays are in keeping with Smilla's relentless nature and temperament, and her contempt for those who unjustly wield power and privilege.

Heart-rending, Smilla's Sense of Snow remains faithful to Hoeg's captivating novel where it matters most. The Ring composer, Hans Zimmer, along with Ryeland Allison, and Harry Gregson-Williams, movingly score the film, which is beautifully cinematographed by Jörgen Persson, and crisply edited by Janus Billeskov Jansen. All soundly deliver a provocative message of the plight of innocent children who suffer in a corruptible adult world, whether at the hands of neglectful parents, fraudulent corporations, unethical scientists, or insolent law enforcement officials.

Thrills and Chills in Greenland and Denmark: A Murder Mystery.......2006-12-12

Julia Ormand plays the beautiful sculptured ice princess Smilla who grew up in Greenland but moved with her family to Denmark. She is now an adult who has a sixth sense about events and people. She is walking home from her job when an ambulance drives by, she stops where a crowd has gathered. She sees the body of a child lying in the snow. She knows the little boy. He and his mother, both from Greenland, lived in her apartment complex. The official verdict is ... Esai was playing on the roof and he accidentally fell to his death. Smilla does not believe it. She visits the coroner's office (wondering why an autopsy was required *if* indeed it was an accident). She is told "it is routine." She digs further, as she notes that Esai's steps on the roof are in a straight-line which indicates to her, he was not playing. Children at play run about in different directions. Her father is a local doctor, she quizzes him and ends up with more questions than answers.

A man living in her apartment, who also misses Esai, tries to comfort Smilla. Smilla resists. She later seeks comfort in his arms and they become lovers ... Smilla is given a gift from Esai's mother, it is a box containing a collection of precious belongings, one of which is a tape-recording. Smilla can not make out the words on the tape but takes it to an expert ... A blind man who worked on excavations in Greenland. He interprets the words for Smilla which indicates there was some cover-up by the mining company that had hired Esai's father to work in Greenland. He had died in a mining accident in 1993 but some mysterious event also occurred then which involved Esai.

When Smilla goes to pick up the tape, she discovers the scientist murdered. The door to his ship is locked shut. There is a huge explosion and fire ... Smilla narrowly escapes with her life. She goes to hide out at her father's home. She knows the mining company executive is somehow involved in covering up some mysterious event which occured in Greenland and that Esai was involved ...

Smilla sees an argument ensue between a white haired gentleman and Esai's mother at his funeral. It turns out he is the top executive of the mining company for which Esai's father worked. Smilla is certain the mining company is trying to silence her from searching further into Esai's death and his father's mining accident (which she suspects was not an accident at all). Smilla confides in her boyfriend who has a friend associated with a shipping company that recruits for excavavations to Greenland. Smilla manages to be hired as the laundress on board one of the largest excavation ships to Greenland ...

There are many twists and turns to this amazing story before the mysterious cover up by the mining company is solved. Smilla accomplishes her goals with the help of the captain's son, who makes suggestive overtures toward her but who ends up becoming her ally in the quest to solve the death of an innocent young boy. The dangerous game of pursuing the mining company executive and uncovering the truth becomes more intense and harrowing ... Smilla and her boyfriend triumph in the end, with the unwitting help of the Captain of the excavation ship. The spell-binding scenery in Greenland is astonishing. This is the first film ever to be made in the forbidding climate of the most Northern country in the world. This film will appeal to murder mystery fans who love a good chase and enjoy chasing clues that become more challenging and mysterious as time goes on but which come to a chilling and satisfying conclusion.
Erika Borsos (pepper flower)

The book must be better.......2006-10-17

I rented this with high hopes, but was eventually disappointed. The casting seems superb and the visuals capture a mood, but I had the sense throughout of a depth of detail and intrigue that was lacking in the movie. There are hints of mysterious facts that are never fully explained, relationships between characters that shift unexpectedly without enough development. Gabriel Byrne's character seems intriguing and appropriately mysterious, but the development of his relationship with Smilla (Julia Ormond) is glossed over to such an extent that it rings false.
The final confrontation devolves into a James Bondian gun fight on a glacier, which by no means lives up to the promise of the earlier plot development of the movie.

Powerful: One of the essentials; a must.......2006-03-22

The very great writer Stanislaw Lem wrote once: "Now days I do not trust the banner of `over a million copies sold', because real masterpieces are not usually best sellers...in their times, but later". Powerful words, especially when it comes to "Smilla's sense of Snow". A great book, made a great movie, but not "A Commercial". Not only a treat of an incredible international cast (Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Loggia, Gabriel Byrne, among others), but the shinning performance of Julia Ormond -a princess among actresses. Made totally on site at Greenland and Denmark, the movie outlines and highlights the beauty of the Inuit Values and Inuit Life, and denounces the greediness of mercantilism that do not care about the consequences of their actions, and the collusion that some authorities lend a hand to the corrupt and the powerful. Make ready your home theatre, prepare your pop corn, your coffee, tea or wine...turn the lights off, and travel to Greenland, Denmark and the mysteries that surround the meteorites that have hit Nunavut and the Davis Inlet. And pay attention to the end credits, because there is something magic in the theory that something colossal happened in that Arctic region...and the Inuit's sense of snow, their understanding and harmony with nature, is what Smilla represents. The fusion of faces between Isaiah and Smilla, is a poem of cinematography.

Average customer rating:

Read the book first...
Finding "Ice" in Justice
Thrills and Chills in Greenland and Denmark: A Murder Mystery
The book must be better
Powerful: One of the essentials; a must

Smilla's Sense of Snow [Region 2]
Starring: Ona Fletcher , Julia Ormond , Agga Olsen , Patrick Field , and Matthew Marsh
Director: Bille August
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00005NSJ9