Mr. Byrne and Snowflakes That Stay on My Nose and Eyelashes

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It's supposed to dip down to seven degrees tonight and we have six
inches of snow on the ground! It's a perfect night to pull out one of
my favorite snowy films, Smilla's Sense of Snow (1997). (Doctor
Zhivago is my all time favorite snow movie, by the way.) Okay, I
admit, up front, this is a B movie; a schlocky thriller with an over
blown plot. But sometimes, I'm just in the mood for one of these
goodies. It does, however, have it's good moments and some very
intelligent lines. And besides, I have always had a bit of a crush on
the handsome and understated Gabriel Byrne. Based on a much
praised 1992 bestseller by Peter Hoeg, it's about a headstrong
woman (Julia Ormand) who uses her uncanny knowledge of ice and
snow to solve the mystery of her six year old neighbor's fall from a
snow covered roof in Copenhagen. The well rounded cast includes
Richard Harris, Jim Broadbent, Tom Wilkinson and Vanessa
Redgrave. This movie is very dark, atmospheric and most of all
cold! Make sure you have on your woolly socks and a blanket
nearby, because all the snow scenes are guaranteed to make you
shiver, if the plot doesn't.


Smilla: The number system is like human life. First you have the
natural numbers. The ones that are whole and positive. Like the
numbers of a small child. But human consciousness expands. The
child discovers longing. Do you know the mathematical expression
for longing? The negative numbers. The formalization of the feeling
that you're missing something.

The way you have a sense of God, I have a sense of snow.