SMILLA’S SENSE OF SNOW/SMILLA’S FEELING FOR SNOW

UK/Denmark, 1997, 121 minutes, Colour.
Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne, Richard Harris, Tom Wilkinson, Robert Loggia, Jim Broadbent, Bob Peck, Vanessa Redgrave.
Directed by Bille August.

Feeling, sensing, intuiting... snow?

A quibble about titles and translations. The film is Smilla's Feeling for Snow (1997). Apparently, this relates more closely to the original Danish title of Peter Hoeg's novel, Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow. However, the title for the film in the U.S. is Smilla's Sense of Snow. Feeling? Sense? If we were to be exact, I think the film might be better titled Smilla's Intuition for Snow.

Peter Hoeg's novel has been brought to the screen by Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror, House of the Spirits, Ingmar Bergman's Best Intentions, Les Miserables). It is a Scandinavian ecological murder mystery, focusing on Greenland, with an intense scientist who loves mathematics, Smilla, obsessed with finding solutions.

Julia Ormond brings Smilla to life, an outsider, abrasive and single-minded but whose feelings for people, especially after the mysterious death of her six year old friend, are beginning to emerge. Her investigation takes her to political and corporation cover-ups, threats on her life and a spectacular climax in Greenland. Perhaps there are too many coincidences and plot gaps, but Smilla is an entertainment with something to say and a different feel from familiar conspiracy movies.

Smilla's response to snow is that of a woman with Greenland Eskimo heritage who is a research scientist. She is not particularly subjective in her approach to snow, nor is she particularly sensing about snow. She is better at describing snow structures and systems than its sense properties. Her response is an overall sixth sense insight into snow and what is associated with it. She is intuitive about snow.

Not having read the novel I was interested in a friend's comments on the book character of Smilla. She was older than Julia Ormond in the movie but my friend found her a male character in female guise, Peter Hoeg not doing a good job in imagining himself into a female character. This, of course, runs the risk of seeing and reading characters according to received stereotypes.

However, the Smilla of the film is very feminine. But, I would suggest that she is more comfortable with being objective than subjective.

Some of the film reviewers at the preview I attended had some difficulties with the structure of the screenplay which had been adapted by fellow-Dane, Bille August. Towards the end it moves to what one called `sub-James Bond territory'. And, just as we were thinking there were too many plot coincidences with characters being almost impossibly in the right place at the right time, Richard Harris, who plays the villain, is given some remarks about coincidences and our noticing them -he might have gone on to discuss synchronicity. While these leaps of coincidence did not particularly appeal to me, it was overall looking at the big picture without being too preoccupied with detail.

One of the conclusions from this is that we should not expect every audience to enjoy the same film. Different films have an in-built style which will mean that they will not necessarily appeal to opposite types. (This can be easily verified by comparing the appeals of slapstick farces with those of Woody Allen comedies.)

Smilla is an outsider. She is a scientist, a mathematician, who has several speeches lauding the qualities of maths, its precision, its theoretical appeals, the nature of numbers. But she is unemployed. Is this because she is a scientist, because she is a woman, because her mother was from Greenland?

However, her life is changed when a young Eskimo boy falls to his death from the roof of her building in Copenhagen. At first, she had rather hostilely rebuffed his childlike offers of friendship but had come to like him and had some sympathy for his alcoholic Eskimo mother and her plight and some empathy for her alienation. She is not satisfied with the sensate evidence of an accident and sets out on a detecting quest.

Making connections, interviewing a range of people, putting her mind to the problems, she moves towards uncovering a conspiracy that takes her back to Greenland and the 1990s conflict between greed, exploitation and the environment. She is able to achieve a solution as well as put the pieces of the big picture together.

But, in her initial isolation, she ran the danger of being stuck in her type. The continued friendship of the boy and her finding the beginnings of a loving response meant that she was being challenged. She was being forced out of her ivory tower into the world of sense. She was also forced to relate and discover a more subjective world. This is compounded by her relationship to the mysterious mechanic (Gabriel Byrne) who seems to be something between spy and guardian angel.

Her sexual response to his has more `masculine' characteristics of abrupt satisfying of needs rather than `feminine' tenderness also makes her discover more of her own tenderness. And the danger brings them closer together.

Smilla had some mainstream release, but it was considered more of an art-house movie.

1. Danish- British film, a story of the 1990s?

2. Adaptation of the novel, complexity of plot, locations? Universal?

3. Greenland, the ice and snow, during the credits, the meteor and the avalanche? The later sequences, the snow, the ships? The musical score?

4. Smilla, her heritage, parents, love of science and mathematics, the cold personality – snow?

5. Copenhagen, the streets, offices, restaurants, and morgue, homes, the boat? The feel of the city?

6. The structure of the film: prologue, the 19th century, the focus on Smilla, the flashbacks to the friendship with the boy, the investigation, relationships, threats, the expedition, the solution? The story and detection?

7. Smilla, her character, cold, mathematics, lack of emotion, relationship with the boy? The Mechanic? With her father, his young wife? The clash? Her being relentless, the autopsy, the discussions with the man at the morgue, his hints and information, the doctor? The police, the blind man, the club owner, the captain and his son?

8. The situation, the boy, the encounter with him and his mother, a growing compassion? Going to the roof, the footprints in the snow, his run, fall? The antagonism of the police? The flashbacks to her memories, with the boy, the stories, the bath, friendship, the mother and her drinking? The concern about the autopsy, the discussion with the conductor of the autopsy, with the doctor, the discussions with The Mechanic, the revelation about the truth, the medical information, the strange worm and his destruction? The boy’s father, going to work in Greenland, his death, the payoff to his wife, the boy jumping into the water, the monthly inspection of his health? The jab after his death to find his physical condition?

9. The Mechanic, his friendship, stammering, helping Smilla, her initial wariness, the love, the kiss?

10. Dr Tork, Smilla and her suspicions, seeing The Mechanic with Dr Tork? His link with the owner of the club?

11. Dr Tork, the truth, Greenland, the expedition, the meteor, his wanting to make money, his ruthlessness, the flashback showing him and the death of the boy? The captain, his anger towards Dr Tork, attacking him, the wound in his arm?

12. The doctor, participating in the plot, the information, the worm, the expedition, his presence at the end, Smilla’s attack and his falling into the water, drowning?

13. The captain, the ship and the crew, his son, the death of his son and his reaction, the confrontation with Dr Tork, the attack, his death? The son, sex and drugs, brash remarks to Smilla, helping her, his death?

14. Smilla’s father, his marriage, the past, in Greenland, love for his wife, for Smilla, his marriage, the character of his new wife and her moods, not wanting to be associated with Smilla? Smilla confronting her, almost choking her?

15. The owner of the club, the connections, his driving Smilla, helping her, to the boat?

16. The teacher, the report, the boy?

17. Smilla going to the blind man, his boat, the tape, his technology, discerning what was on the tape? His death, the boat exploding, Smilla almost killed?

18. The police, the interrogation, Smilla and her experiences, the threats?

19. On the ship, hiding, going up in the lift, seeing the videos, the information? The captain and his henchmen, chasing Smilla, her going over the side, reliance on the captain’s son?

20. Going across the ice, to the site, the doctor, Dr Tork, the captain and his attack on Dr Tork, The Mechanic and his arrival, saving Smilla? Her walk across the snow?

21. An interesting example of science, the touch of science fiction, murders, the mystery, solving the mystery?