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>> COLD MOUNTAIN

Starring: Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, and more ...
Director: Anthony Minghella
Genre: Drama




as depicted in "cold mountain,'' director anthony minghella's rendering of the charles frazier novel (minghella is known for his beautiful adaptaion in "the english patient" or "the talented mr. ripley"), the south before the collapse of the confederacy is a world upended, where life is cheap and miserable, and where a southern belle doesn't worry about making ball gowns out of curtains but about surviving the winter. if she's in love, like ada (nicole kidman) she also worries about whether she'll ever see her sweetheart again. in ada's case, she worries for years, without any word from the front lines.

"cold mountain'' begins with a battle scene so masterfully conceived just to give the chance to the team to overdo itself in the civil war research and actually putting it to such a grand production. the scene is a succession of brutalities.. in 1864, at petersburg, virginia, the union troops tunnel under enemy lines and dynamite the confederates in their trenches. this is followed by a union charge, which turns into a disaster. the charging troops find themselves in a massive ditch, exposed to confederate fire. well, if you're into history like i do, and know a bit more about civil war, the scenes shows great respect on how it should be.

in the front end, inman (jude law) is wounded, and he's subsequently sent to a makeshift army hospital. this gives the art director and set decorator a chance to show that they've faithfully studied civil war field-hospital daguerreotypes. knowing that the southern cause is lost, inman decides to desert before he's quite recovered. the rest of the film alternates between showing ada's struggles at home and inman's odyssey, mainly on foot, back to ada and his hometown called "cold mountain".

kidman grows into the role. in the flashback scenes to ada and inman's very brief courtship, she seems too mature, if not in appearance, certainly in essence. but as adversity forces ada to come into her strength and womanliness, kidman gets a handle on ada and blossoms along with her. the role's defining note is longing -- for peace, for a better life, but specifically for inman and everything that reunion might imply -- and that makes it ideal for kidman, who, despite her ethereal looks, is an especially earthy actress.

her longing, his longing. the movie never relinquishes that thread, because it guides the action and offers the only promise of a future. the sex drive is the life force, the one block on the impulse toward destruction. there's a moving episode in which inman is helped by a young widow (a grown-up natalie portman), who's nursing a sick infant. she puts him up for the night and ultimately asks him to sleep in her bed, just to be able to touch someone again. grief and sadness are released just by touching hands. that moment has more impact than the sex scenes of 20 other movies.

back on "cold mountain", meanwhile, the home front is enlivened by the arrival of renee zellweger as ruby, a rough tomboy who can do any kind of farm work. zellweger's performance is broad and fun and daringly idiosyncratic, but never untrue or out of control. she definitely outshines in this movie. we experience ruby the way we might, in real life, experience someone like ruby. first as a character, then as a person.

at 154 minutes, "cold mountain'' is long and seems long, at times inspired, at times merely dutiful. but in most of the important ways, it succeeds. it's impossible to watch the film without hating the home raiders, for example, or caring whether inman makes it home. although i'm still trying to finish the book, i can feel the strong emotional feeling from this movie. the longing of a girl who's waiting for the man she loves, but they hardly know each other when they made the promise. and the war, the years of longing has changed them.. and brought them back together.

the movie is cinematographically beautiful. many cameos appear including natalie portman, giovanni ribisi, even to jack white (from the white stripes). the director is definitely an expert in adapting a novel to a screenplay, hence the wonderful picture of the emotions of the two characters.. something that i have always been skeptical about.. until now. i just can't wait to finish the book, i bet it's even better.

[some words are taken from mick lasalle's review for san francisco chronicles]


>> rated by :: sLesTa | [ ]

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