‘Snow’ poor translation of book

SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. Directed by Scott Hicks. Written by Ron Bass and Hicks, based on the novel by David Guterson. Running time: 130 minutes. Rated PG-13.

Capturing the essence of a complexly layered, multifarious novel and bringing it to screen is one thing, but presenting a literal interpretation of the text is something all together different, especially when that text is as rooted in flashbacks as is David Guterson’s best-selling novel “Snow Falling on Cedars.”

Anthony Minghella did the job right in 1996. When he translated Michael Ondaatje’s “The English Patient” for the screen, he cut through the novel’s deeply internal landscape and labyrinthine plot to find the core of the novel’s story, which he told through rich, stunning visuals that perfectly reflected Ondaatje’s poetic use of language.

The streamlining of Ondaatje’s text and the reworking of his ideas wasn’t meant to disrespect the author; Minghella simply knows that film is its own medium, one that has its own rules of what works and what doesn’t.

In “Snow Falling on Cedars,” Scott Hicks, the director of “Shine,” doesn’t fare so well. His film, as beautifully shot and as well-acted as it is by Ethan Hawke, Max Von Sydow, James Cromwell and Youki Kudoh, is a mess of intricate flashbacks within flashbacks, memories within memories, that take the audience out of the moment and straight into the cinematic equivalent of an acid trip.

Instead of focusing on the novel’s central story — a rural, Japanese American (Rick Yune) on trial for the alleged murder of a white man nine years after the attack on Pearl Harbor — he wants to focus on all the novel’s ideas, themes and subplots. Unless you’re incredibly gifted, you just can’t do that on film without bogging down its pace, undermining character development and exhausting the audience, which is precisely what happens here.

What’s worse is that “Snow Falling on Cedars,” which is every bit as pretentious as its title, doesn’t trust its audience. Indeed, it’s about as subtle as body odor when slamming home its themes of prejudice, humanity, decency and fear. If it all seemed so much more carefully balanced in the book, it’s not only because it was, but also because the book didn’t have James Newton Howard’s thunderous score punctuating the prejudice with 10,000 screaming violins.

Grade: C

STIR OF ECHOES. Written and directed by David Koepp. Running time: 110 minutes. Rated R.

With clear echoes of M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense,” David Koepp’s “Stir of Echoes” glides into video stores with a strong, character-driven story that opens with a boy who sees dead people.

But don’t fear — “Echoes” is no rehashing of “The Sixth Sense.” Based on Richard Matheson’s 1958 novel, the film wisely and swiftly shifts its focus to the boy’s father, Tom Witzky (Kevin Bacon), a gruff, insensitive jerk hypnotized by his sister-in-law Lisa (Illeana Douglas) in a supreme effort to loosen him up and open his mind.

No one is prepared for the consequences. Almost immediately, Tom’s mind is open to the paranormal. Like his son, Jake (Zachary David Cope), he now can see the spirit of a dead girl named Samantha (Jenny Morrison) living in their home. It is how Samantha died that gives the last half of “Echoes” its seamless cinematic verve.

Unlike the recent “Stigmata,” which threw everything but Linda Tripp at the screen to give audiences a fright, “Echoes” is restrained; there is never a moment when Koepp isn’t working for his characters or his story.

He respects the genre too much to toss in cheap scare tactics such as those found in “The Haunting” or “Supernova.” Instead, just as Kubric did in “The Shining,” Donner in “The Omen” and De Palma in “Carrie,” he’s content to tell an absorbing story about people forever changed by the paranormal.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear each Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, each Tuesday and Thursday on WLBZ’s “NEWS CENTER 5:30 Today” and “NEWS CENTER Tonight,” and each Saturday and Sunday on NEWS CENTER’s statewide “Morning Report.”