Smilla's Sense of Snow (film)
| Smilla's Sense of Snow | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Bille August |
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| Screenplay by | Ann Biderman |
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Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow by Peter Høeg |
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| Cinematography | Jörgen Persson |
| Edited by | Janus Billeskov Jansen |
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121 minutes |
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| Budget | $35 million |
| Box office | $2.4 million (USA) |
Smilla's Sense of Snow (released in the United Kingdom under the original novel title) is a 1997 Danish-British-American thriller film directed by Bille August and starring Julia Ormond, Gabriel Byrne, and Richard Harris. Based on the 1992 novel Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (original Danish title: Frøken Smillas fornemmelse for sne) by Danish author Peter Høeg, the film is about a transplanted Greenlander, Smilla Jasperson, who investigates the mysterious death of a small Inuit boy who lived in her housing complex in Copenhagen. Suspecting wrongdoing, Smilla uncovers a trail of clues leading towards a secretive corporation that has made several mysterious expeditions to Greenland.
Scenes from the film were shot in Copenhagen, Kiruna and western Greenland. The film was entered into the 47th Berlin International Film Festival, where director Bille August was nominated for the Golden Bear.
In 1859, a meteorite streaks across the sky and crashes into the Gela Alta glacier in western Greenland, causing a massive explosion that kills an Inuit fisherman.
In present-day Copenhagen, Smilla Jasperson, a transplanted Greenlander, is studying ice crystals at a university lab. An Arctic ice specialist, Smilla is uncredentialed and unemployed with a troubled past. She returns to her apartment complex to find the body of her neighbour, Isaiah Christiansen, a six-year-old Inuit boy, lying dead in the snow. The police tell her the boy was playing on the roof and fell. On the roof Smilla sees the boy's footprints in the snow and suspects foul play. The pattern of the footprints reveal someone running straight to the edge of the roof. Knowing the boy was terrified of heights, she suspects he was running away from someone.
At the morgue Smilla meets Dr. Lagermann. Seeing the body, Smilla remembers her friendship with the boy—reading to him, bathing him, taking him to the zoo. Her love for this neglected son of an alcoholic mother had given meaning to Smilla's lonely life. She is surprised to learn that Dr. Johannes Loyen, a prominent professor, performed the autopsy. The next day, she visits Loyen, who states the child's death was an accident. Unconvinced, Smilla files a complaint with the District Attorney. She goes to Lagermann's home seeking more information, and he reveals he discovered a puncture wound on the boy's thigh made by a biopsy needle after his death. He also reveals that Loyen was examining the boy every month.
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Wikipedia