DESPITE THE FALLING SNOW: A Whole Lot Of Wasted Potential

Despite The Falling Snow is a film by novelist and filmmaker Shamim Sharif. The film is based on her book of the same name and plays out over two time periods. In 1950’s Moscow Katya is a spy for the Americans and is encouraged to marry and steal secrets from the young politician Alex. Meanwhile in 1990’s New York Katya’s niece Lauren, an artist, is making plans to discover what happened to her aunt. It stars Rebecca Ferguson in both roles, as Katya and Lauren.

Not that any of us would have known this. Promotion for this film has been almost invisible to even the most seasoned cinema goer, and most of what I discovered about it I had to search for on the internet. Admittedly I had high hopes for Despite The Falling Snow, I imagined something reminiscent of The Debt (which I didn’t like) or Sarah’s Key (which I did). But all the expectation might not have been worth it, and I can understand why this film didn’t open to glorious fanfare. Because although it’s not awful, it’s really not very good either

The Past

The most successful part of Despite The Falling Snow takes place in the past. The characters have a depth and a warmth to them which although isn’t completely engaging does at least make you interested in their ultimate fates. Katya is played by Rebecca Ferguson and played very well, her chemistry with Alex (played by Sam Reid) has potential, but you never really understand how she feels about him or what his reasons are for wanting her. Their relationship, in fact, is treated quite superficially. You never feel any strong emotions between them. In fact, you never really feel any emotions about anything.

Katya works for her friend Misha (played very well by Oliver Jackson-Cohen), together they both work for the Americans. Understandably the nature of their work must be kept secret, but most of the time you kind of wonder if they’re doing anything at all. All the papers are in Russian, so we’re not sure they’re important. Also, communication with anyone else they are ‘fighting with’ is so scant I did wonder at some point whether they were just being led on by a KGB hoping to dupe them into treason. Katya and Misha’s personal relationship is more interesting. There is a suggestion of a romantic interest, but of course she has to be with Alex. Again, there’s great potential here but it’s never really explored.

The Present

The 1992 present, in comparison to the past (but also compared to any other film), is two-dimensional and kind of vacuous. We know from the film’s opening that Alex defected while in New York, hoping that Katya would join him. There he remains, and for some reason has ended up being the father figure to Katya’s niece Lauren. This is all very confusing. Charles Dance plays the older Alex but sounds and looks nothing like Sam Reid, and we never really connect to him as this man who loved Katya so passionately. In fact his disengagement from the past ends up seeming like a complete disinterest in Katya altogether.

Weirdly, despite her great performance as Katya, Rebecca Ferguson falls short as Lauren. She comes across as cold, kind of blank, and with an accent that jumps around quite a bit. Plus, her wig is incredibly off putting. But a lot of this might be due to Sharif’s creation of the character and her direction of Ferguson. Lauren is supposed to be close to her Uncle Alex but her understanding of him is thin to say the least. Also, her parents died but we don’t know how or when, or how exactly she ended up in Alex’s care. There’s also this part of you that wonders if Lauren isn’t Alex and Katya’s daughter, which keeps your interest going for a while, until you realise she certainly isn’t.

Overall, the 90’s is not very good. Charles Dance and Anthony Head (as the older Misha) don’t really put anything into their roles, although they occasionally, and rather grossly, ham them up. As the present moves to Moscow journalist Marina does nothing to help matters. Antje Traue (as Marina) isn’t a great actress and there is little subtlety in her performance. Marina clearly has her own agenda but you’re not really sure what it is, and when you do find out it’s as cold and boring as the rest of her story.

The romantic relationship between Lauren and Marina is pretty poor too. It’s been a few years since I’ve seen such a cold lesbian relationship on screen. I think Rebecca Ferguson tries hard but the chemistry between her Antje Traue is non-existent and Traue just seems uncomfortable with the whole thing.

Poor Production Points

These days even the most amateur of filmmakers can make a small production budget work. So I was less than optimistic about the film as a whole when the opening titles were nothing more than a series of historical film images overlaid with some pretty crass, amateur Times New Roman titles. It was like they’d been created on a version of Windows that just about survived the 90’s. They were off-putting, and were perhaps an indicator of the surprises still to come.

For the most part the production of the past in Despite The Falling Snow is okay, the settings and the costumes are good. Although the scantness of Alex’s kitchen does sort of give away the fact that he hasn’t cooked so much as had the prop department place a saucepan on the cooker. The one truly heinous part of the past is the special effects used while the characters walk alongside the Moskva river (see below). The actors have been placed inside some kind of cobbled together CGI set of real and fake images, and badly. It’s obviousness is irritating, and I was amazed that a filmmaker would use such bad SFX in a contemporary film.

The present is actually what annoyed me most about this film. In both the past and present the characters seem to be without any strong or discernible accents. Which is okay when everyone is Russian or everyone is American but when Lauren goes to Moscow in the beginning of the film I didn’t notice. I didn’t know she was in Moscow for quite a while, in fact, because I didn’t hear any Russian accents. Furthermore the costume and setting in the 90’s is just poor. It’s a particular gripe of mine that I hate films that try to ‘get by’ in an 80’s or 90’s world just by ditching the mobile phones and wearing slightly unfashionable clothing. This lack of authenticity just distanced me away from the narrative more than I already was.

Conclusion

A film set in two time periods is always going to suffer slightly, all the jumping back and forth between storylines can disengage the audience from what is going on. Also, when neither of the time periods is the one we’re living in, as a viewer we have a lot more to understand. This can just add to our confusion.

However, Despite The Falling Snow has many problems in spite of this fact. The mystery of the story is so simple and clichéd it is impossible to engage with. While the narrative plays out sensibly, and predictably, there is no depth. Ultimately, we are never empathise for these characters and importantly are never scared for Katya. The younger actors do well (although Thure Lindhardt is underused) but the direction leaves many of the performances feeling quite cold. Furthermore, bad production choices just make some of the film no better than a TV movie, and one from the 90’s at that. I hate to be harsh, because I feel like there was potential in this film. But it’s a potential that was wasted.

Do you plan on seeing Despite The Falling Snow? Have you read the book? What did you think of it?

Despite The Falling Snow is out in UK cinemas, with no current plans to release it in the US. Considering I was the first person to buy a ticket for it at my local cinema I predict that this will most likely go straight to DVD in other countries, but stay tuned to the release dates in case of any change.