STORY/SYPNOSIS
Fog as thick and palpable as cotton hangs suspended over San Piedro Island. On the bay, a flickering lantern signals distress from a crippled fishing boat, while elsewhere a freighter lurches blindly through the chalky mist. By morning, sea and sky are clear, but the tranquil village of fisherman and berry farmers will forever be changed. For one man has lost his life, and another -a childhood friend- has been charged with taking it. An investigation is launched. The trial begins.
A reporter covering the trial, Ishmael Chambers, sits in the courtroom, carefully observing the person with whom he shared the rapturous secrets of childhood, the only woman he has ever loved. Hatsue, the defendant's wife. Their tortured relationship will have an unexpected bearing on the trial of Kazuo Miyamoto, which serves to frame Snow Falling On Cedars.
Yet within this labyrinth lies an even more deeply hidden secret: the haunting childhood love of Ishmael (Ethan Hawke) and Hatsue (Youki Kudoh). As children they worked alongside each other in the fields, he for pocket money and she to help her family. In their teen years they were exceptionally cautious. Forbidden by custom to have an open relationship, they secretly met in the hollow of a giant cedar. Now, they meet in a courtroom where Hatsue's husband, Kazuo, is accused of murder.
The truth about this tragedy will ultimately emerge, not from legal proceedings but from the deepest, most tender chamber of the human heart.
