Aug. 11, 2002 - 7:20 pm
i've just heard a lot of references in the past few weeks to this film so i decided i should go ahead and pick it up. it has a wonderful cover and looked like it might be my type of film. plus it has Ethan Hawke in it who i love. excellent actor. i'm so glad he finally got recognized at the Oscars this year. when i started watching this film, i really had no idea what it was about.
it turns out that it's 1950s America in a fictional fishing town in New England. (oh and this film is filled with flashbacks.) during present day there is a man who dies at the beginning of the film. the rest of the film shows an investigation and trial for the only accused person, a Japanese man who had a grudge against the killed fisherman. there's lots of racial tension since America had recently fought a war with Japan, and it's sort of a trial against Japan which is just no good. the only person who has any evidence to save the accused man is Ethan Hawke's character who is a reporter whose first love since childhood has been the accused man's wife. a Japanese girl who he could never be seen in public with because of the tension between the two races.
this film has awesome cinematography by Robert Richardson who has done tons of great films. quite a few of them i have on my list to see. like JFK (1991), Wall Street (1987), and Born on the Fouth of July (1989). another visual thing about this film is it has a very sallow color alteration done to it. all the colors are really washed out. and that really connotes the feeling of the movie altogether. it's filled with painful memories and a whistful feeling that makes you feel like the passage of time is somewhat meaningless. they did what they set out to do really well. i just think that i don't like what they were trying to do. don't get me wrong. i definitely like some films that leave you with negative feelings and emotions. just not this one so much.