A jagged and incoherent narration of an otherwise brilliant story. The movie can best be described as how children write essays, on the form... "Smilla did this. Then she found out that. Then she watched this. Then she did something. etc. etc.". Really not what one might expect from Bille August who is an otherwise excellent storyteller. Peter Hoeg is an expert author who includes plenty of pause in his novels letting you wonder yourself and fantasize as to what is going on on the sideline helped by a painstakingly accurate description of the characters. These pauses must be substituted with cuts in a movie, not leaving the audience time to ponder and thus there must be subplots to support the build-up of the characters. This is exactly what this movie is missing. It has no subplots.
The scenery is pretty and winter-twilighty. This could have helped show a Danish winter as it can be but failed and cast the movie with a depressing shade of grey.
The intro, however, was spectacular. Not so much the wave plunging through the pack ice - but the anticipating stance of the man waiting to harpoon a seal. When filmed from behind (where we could see the meteor dropping) he looked exactly like a tupilak figure. THAT was beautiful.
The scenery is pretty and winter-twilighty. This could have helped show a Danish winter as it can be but failed and cast the movie with a depressing shade of grey.
The intro, however, was spectacular. Not so much the wave plunging through the pack ice - but the anticipating stance of the man waiting to harpoon a seal. When filmed from behind (where we could see the meteor dropping) he looked exactly like a tupilak figure. THAT was beautiful.