Film review – Dagny – 2/10/97
One of the reasons I went to see this movie was to see how well it would live up to Peter Hoeg’s extraordinary novel, Miss Smilla’s Feeling For Snow. But having said that, I think it is important that the film be judged not just for how well it measures up against the novel, but also for its own merits as an autonomous art work. The inevitable comparisons will have to be made, but I will try not to spend too much time on them.
The film opens in Copenhagen, with Smilla coming home one day to find a group of people standing around the body of her neighbor’s young son, who had apparently fallen from the roof of their apartment building to his death. Smilla, who had a close friendship with the young boy, is not convinced that the child fell. The boy was terrified of heights, so Smilla does not believe the police explanation that he was playing on the roof. Her “feeling for snow” allows her to draw conclusions from the boy’s tracks that the policemen miss, and she begins her own investigation into the boy’s death. As she looks deeper and deeper into the matter, she is drawn into a web of intrigue and cover-ups that involve big business and the government, and eventually leads her back to her native Greenland.
What follows is a good thriller with a strong and unusual heroine. The film cuts out some of the (rather baroque) complications of the novel and leaves us with a plot that is easier to follow, yet still full of conspiracy and unexpected subversions. The atmosphere of Copenhagen in winter is presented skillfully, and the depiction of the huge expanses of ice in Greenland is eerie and evocative. Julia Ormond is excellent as Smilla, she gives a convincing performance that never once made me think, “but she wasn’t like that in the book!” She gives us a strong and uncompromising Smilla who is not afraid to follow her own conscience and trust her own intelligence. If only there were more parts like this for women. Ormond’s Smilla is well rounded, gutsy, and believable. So much of the movie depends on this one character, and Ormond carries it very well.
Gabriel Byrne also gives a very good performance as the Mechanic. This character is not as well developed as Smilla, and he doesn’t have quite the same presence in the film as he had in the book. However, Byrne manages to suggest more than he actually shows, and his soulful expression conveys a good deal. He has the right kind of puzzling neutrality that keeps us wondering whose side he is really on.
And now for the inevitable comparisons with the book. Some of the flashbacks depicting Smilla’s relationship with the boy Isaiah seemed a little corny and sentimental. The movie didn’t quite capture one of the most important qualities of Hoeg’s writing: the ability to evoke strong emotion and feeling without ever descending into
sentimentality. The film explores Smilla and Isaiah’s relationship quite subtly and creates a sense of strong feeling between them. However, one of the most important connections between these people is that they are both Greenlanders, and the film doesn’t really deal with that as fully as the book. The movie doesn’t give us a strong sense of why Smilla’s Greenlandic heritage is so important, or why she feels so conflicted about it. The film also doesn’t tell us a lot about Smilla’s feeling for snow; it really only figures when she is looking at Isaiah’s footprints.
Despite these criticisms, I still enjoyed the movie a great deal, and found that it captured much of the atmosphere and intensity of the novel. As a thriller it was gripping and tense, and it presented one of the most dynamic and different screen heroines I’ve seen for a long time. It captured some of the air of
melancholy and solitude that made the book so
memorable, and the fine performances from Julia
Ormond and Gabriel Byrne make it one of the year’s best.