Scott Hicks's film Snow Falling on Cedars and Peter Hoeg's novel Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow

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Recommended: Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson ESSAY

Scott Hicks's film Snow Falling on Cedars and Peter Hoeg's novel Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow Both Scott Hicks's film Snow Falling on Cedars and Peter Hoeg's novel

Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow create images of natural beauty and

purity and also of power and destruction with the same motif: snow.

The snow obviously shapes Smilla's world in a very conscious way, it

is her ally in her struggle; whilst Ishmael's world is under attack

literally and symbolically from this powerful natural force. The

flickering lights of the courthouse capture the fragility of human

reason and decency as the snow beats against the roof. Yet in both

endings the snow comes to represent freshness and purity, and it is

through the stories of Smilla and Ishmael that Hoeg and Hicks explore

this transition. The snow falling in Smilla's world is quanick, large,

light and magical and the fog obscuring Karl's world, possesses an

equally mysterious quality. From these points of departure, both

Hoeg's novel and Hicks's film begin to create worlds characterised and

shaped by formidable weather. Both stories are powerfully conveyed by

the vivid imagery of their settings. Hoeg opens his novel with a

powerful prologue, set at a funeral; Smilla instantly informs us that

weather, the seemingly limitless "December darkness", has influenced

her mood. Smilla's connection with her environment is stressed

throughout the novel and is strikingly apparent in the conclusion. She

is left alone on a pure-white glacier, in the freshly fallen snow. The

natural order has returned, inviting her to a new beginning. ...

... middle of paper ...

...s as the stories progress, sustains the

characters' reality. The delayed impact of these motifs, due to their

intrinsic connection with the narrative, furthers the author's and

director's formation of theme and its relevance to the reader or

viewer. Connecting the imagery directly with the plot, Hoeg and Hicks

implicitly shape their readers'/viewers' understanding of their

natural yet human worlds. Ishmael's world ends covered in the truth as

white as the snow in Smilla's biblical allusion, whilst Smilla ends

alone in the pure white, fresh snow. She faces a new beginning and

with it the knowledge that there is no single truth and therefore no

certainty in beginning or conclusion.

[1] Page 4

[2] Page 101

[3] Page 26

[4] Dialogue in film.

[5] Page 32

[6] Page 64

[7] Dialogue in film.

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