This paper will focus specifically on the character of Ishmael Chambers and his struggle to liberate himself from the debilitating weight of personal hurt and grief. The film clearly shows that this struggle is intrinsically connected to his role in helping liberate others from the oppressive and systemic evil of racism.
Accordingly, the film re-presents the human condition (i.e. the way that humans experience and engage and/or disengage in life) as a condition that is multi-layered (the personal and communal, for instance, are intertwined). It is a condition that is awash with ambiguity, with things in process of revelation. The film's very look and flow emphasizes this understanding of the human condition. Plot details, for instance, are layered--with events revealed in a gradual, accumulative manner, like the falling and drifting snow of the film's blizzard. The revelation of characters' feelings and motivations is similarly dependent on the interlacing of selective flashbacks with action in the film's 'present.' For some, this cinematic approach involves too much work. Snow Falling on Cedars does not spoon-feed answers or information. The film requires an attentive audience willing to engage its visual language, its often-complex montage of images.
The gaining of meaning in and through the human condition similarly demands conscious engagement--i.e. a growing relationship with God, self and others. Theologically, this implies that there is a sense of intentionality in God's creation of humanity and the human condition. It is a condition that in many ways is dictated by accident, by chance, by outward things bearing down upon us. Yet such a condition provides opportunities for the development of relationship and for all that relationship entails--free will, responsibility, journey, trust, love. One can thus say that God desires to be in relationship and so created a universe wherein finiteness, process and unpredictability exist, and accordingly the potential for engagement, for relationship. It is through meaningful relationships that humans experience the loving and transformative presence and action of the sacred.
At the center of the unfolding story of Snow Falling on Cedars is Ishmael Chambers, a young man who, at a very deep level, has opted out of engagement with life. In the film's present time he is depicted as a brooding loner, a man living with his "ghosts," unable to let go of the past and thus forge a meaningful, relational future. He is very much in a state of limbo. Love and transformation appear absent from his life.
Throughout the trial of Kazuo, the husband of Ishmael's childhood and adolescent love, Hatsue, Ishmael is torn between writing truthfully about the prejudice and unfairness he observes in the courtroom and wallowing in his deep bitterness about the unfair way his relationship with Hatsue ended. Kazuo stands accused of murdering local fisherman Carl Heine, and the trial is bringing to the surface painful memories of how the Japanese-Americans were treated by the European-Americans during the Second World War eight years earlier. Ishmael has located a crucial piece of evidence--a coast guard report indicating that a large ship passed by Carl's fishing boat on the fog-enshrouded night that the man was killed. Yet in terms of coming forward with this information he has unearthed and which could liberate Kazuo, Ishmael is in a state of debilitation.
In the early courtroom scenes, Ishmael is filmed in such a way so as to emphasize his inner and relational state. He looks imprisoned behind the heavy wooden railing of the press gallery. He is often only partly shown through this railing--an effect that highlights the fact that he is hiding--hiding from relational engagement with life. In not coming forth with the information he has found, Ishmael makes true what he believes the townsfolk whisper about him--that he is only "half the man as his father." By willfully withholding this vital piece of information, Ishmael is also aligning himself with those within the community whom, as Hatsue notes, are not interested in seeking the truth, but rather perpetuating bigotry and prejudice. Ishmael's silence is his consent to the systemic evil of racism. Theologically, such a situation implies that the eradication of systemic evil involves active engagement with others--and thus with the process of relationship-building wherein God's liberative presence and action is revealed. This engagement may also involve the speaking out for those marginalized and/or silenced by systemic evil.
In the film's 'present' time setting, Ishmael struggles to lift his voice against two interconnected obsessions: the deep-seated communal obsession with the systemic evil of prejudice and racism, and his personal obsession with Hatsue and the sense of bitterness and grief around the ending of their relationship.
It was a relationship that, in many ways, was undermined by the prejudice and racism of Hatsue's mother. Thus the film doesn't single out any particular race as being capable of narrow-mindedness and prejudice. Yet without question, it is the prejudice of the white citizens of San Piedro Island (and by extension, the United States) that is the film's primary focus. Standing defiantly against this prejudice during the war years was Ishmael's father, Arthur Chambers. As editor and publisher of the Island Review, Arthur tirelessly challenged his fellow citizens by writing about fairness, equality and justice. In one scene he has Ishmael typeset the following:
These people are our neighbors . . . they are no more an enemy than our fellow islanders of German or Italian descent. Let us live that, when it is over, we can look each other in the eye. And know we have acted honorably.
Such noble sentiments do not prevent the townspeople standing idly by as their Japanese-American neighbors are rounded up and shipped off to Arizona for internment--Hatsue and her family among them. In the film's sequence of events, Arthur Chambers' death occurs not long after the internment of the Japanese-Americans and Ishmael's involvement in the war.
Like Ishmael's father, Alvin Hooks, the prosecutor in Kazuo's trial, also extols the islanders to look into the eyes of one of their Japanese neighbors--though not in order to see a fellow islander, but instead a "hard man to trust."1 He skillfully plays on the white community's prejudices and fears. Such a tactic is not lost on Hatsue who challenges Ishmael to write about the unfairness of the trial. His initial response is one of bitterness, yet the next scene depicts him gingerly picking up and trying on his father's glasses. Hatsue's words, along with Ishmael's mother's gentle insistence that "it's not such a terrible thing being your father's son," have awakened something within him. Theologically, this sequence of scenes reminds us of the need to challenge one another in being effective messengers for those who have been silenced, effective builders of right-relationships. Yet as the film clearly shows, such a task--especially when one is burdened with past hurts and bitterness--and thus silenced oneself--can be a monumental struggle.
In one scene Ishmael is depicted in the press gallery listening to the trial unfolding below him while upon his lap rests both an Island Review notepad (symbolic of his calling to use his skills as a writer to speak words of truth and hope) and the coast guard report which, if publicized could free Kazuo. Yet when Hatsue is called to the witness stand, a surge of bitterness compels Ishmael to 'bury' the coast card report under his notepad.
Later, after Hatsue's and his mother's challenge, Ishmael attempts to write an article--the changing title of which is indicative of where his thoughts are being carried: "The Face of Prejudice," "Fairness and Justice." Yet at the same time the film depicts him haunted by a vision of himself burning the coast guard report--an action that would surely ensure Kazuo's imprisonment and would be a way of punishing Hatsue for the pain and bitterness she caused by ending her relationship with Ishmael. We also see a fish gasping for air juxtaposed with an image of Ishmael washed up among the dead on Tarawa Beach, a younger Ishmael upon the same beach with Hatsue, picking up and looking upon a dead fish just as Ishmael is picked up and dragged to shore by two soldiers. The tidal zone of this scene is fitting. It's a space that is neither land nor sea, yet both land and sea. We hear Hatsue's voice saying "I loved you and I didn't love you at the same moment," and realize that ever since receiving this news, Ishmael on an emotional, relational level is dead while still living.
Ishmael's redemption is intrinsically bound to his struggling to come out with the truth he has discovered. The closing argument of the defense lawyer, Nels Gudmundsson, plays an important role in Ishmael's ultimate decision to come forward with the coast guard report and thus to let go of the past. Ishmael recognizes in Nels' words his own predicament. It is not just Kazuo who is on trial. Ishmael too is on trial--as is the whole island community:
I feel like a traveler descended from Mars, astonished at what passes here. What I see is the same human frailty passed from generation to generation. We hate one another. We are the victims of irrational fears and prejudice. You may think this is a small trial, in a small place. Well, it isn't. Every once in awhile, somewhere in the world, humanity goes on trial--and integrity, and decency. Every once in awhile, ordinary people get called on to give the report card for the human race.
Nels words imply a theological understanding of humanity (indeed all aspects of creation) as being interconnected, as being, at some fundamental level, one. Systemic evil--such as racism--raptures this oneness. Nels is well aware that if the members of the jury were free of their obsession with prejudice, they would not find Kazuo guilty. Nels' speech clearly touches Ishmael--who is also obsessed with feelings of past hurts that prevent him from doing the right thing, from building right-relationships. The next scene shows Ishmael standing by the ancient cedar wherein he and Hatsue played as children. The film then depicts the two meeting after Ishmael's return from the war--his left arm amputated below the elbow. Among the stranded driftwood washed up upon the beach (an appropriate metaphor for Ishmael), Hatsue implores Ishmael to "let go." She acknowledges that she has done a terrible thing, but now that she is married to Kazuo, she can never hold Ishmael again. The film then cuts to 'present' time Ishmael walking resolutely to the home of Kazuo's family with the coast guard report.
Theologically, the film imparts the message that letting go is ultimately a pro-active, liberating series of steps. After coming forward, for instance, Ishmael is shown directing the re-examination of Carl's boat--an action that leads to further evidence that Carl's death was the result of turbulence caused by a passing ship--a passing that is verified by the coast guard report.
Later, Nels comments to Ishmael that it takes something unique, a turning point, to free oneself from an obsession--be it prejudice or love. Ishmael responds that he had to, that he had no choice. The film then shows him thinking back to his childhood with Hatsue--and for the first time, such a memory brings a smile to his face. He seems genuinely at peace with his past. At the end of the trial--one that is dismissed in light of the evidence brought forth by Ishmael--Kazuo is free and Hatsue follows Ishmael out into the snow to hug him and thank him for his "gentle heart." Ishmael's action is also acknowledged and honored by the Japanese community--with Kazuo's family and supporters rising from their seats when the judge announces that the trial is dismissed, and turning and bowing to Ishmael in the press gallery. The camera rises in such a way that Ishmael appears to ascend from his 'prison' of columns and railings. In a very real way Ishmael, through his actions, has transcended the prison of his past bitterness and hurt. His humanity--i.e. his relational capacity--has been redeemed, has been liberated to develop and grow.
I'm not convinced, however, that it was a single event that provided a turning point for Ishmael. Such an idea counters the visual language of the film, a language that speaks of accumulative forces, rather than a snap decision, compelling one to action.
Theologically, this implies that we are called to be mindful that it is God who is present in these forces that draw us, invite us out of imprisonment and isolation, despair and bitterness to new paths, to opportunities for engagement and relationship with others. We are called to trust that such potentially transformative forces flow and can be consciously responded to deep within us (within the chambers of the human heart). Such forces can also be mediated to us though the loving, relationship-building actions of others, just as we can also channel them to others. We are called to trust that such forces come from a loving God constantly calling us to communion with him/her through our 'common union' with those around us.
Such a trusting outlook enables us to let go of a puppet-master God, to acknowledge that God does not control the outward circumstances of our lives--the unfairness and random events that "just bear down upon us"--but that inwardly much is possible if we open ourselves to God's transformative love. The journey of Ishmael Chambers clearly shows that when our response to outside things bearing down upon us and oppressing us is one of forging and/or strengthening relationships that honor both ourselves and others, then we open ourselves to experience the transforming and liberating presence and action of the sacred.
Liberation as a process connected with our relationship with others also implies theologically that we are called to be mindful of and open to sharing truths that we have discerned or discovered--no matter how upsetting such truths may be for those entrenched in relationships of dominance and control (Kazuo's court case was certainly disrupted and derailed, and the relationships undergirded by prejudice rebuked and challenged). It also means that we are called to be open to wider issues and to recognize that bitterness and prejudice within our own heart adds to and perpetuates the bitterness and prejudice in the world around us. Ishmael could not be a force for positive change in the world until first he made a conscious choice to change himself. Yet paradoxically, changing oneself 'within' involves changing our relationships with those around us--those whom we might consider 'outside' of us. Thus our relationship with self and God is reflected in our relationship with others.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
FILM
BOOKS
Theological Reflections on Snow Falling on Cedars, (c) Michael J. Bayly
Snow Falling on Cedars. Produced by Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall. Directed by Scott Hicks. 128 min. Universal, 2000. Videocassette.
Bass, Ron, and Hicks, Scott. Snow Falling on Cedars: The Shooting Script. New York: Newmarket Press, 1999.