Both Scott Hicks's film Snow Falling on Cedars and Peter Hoeg's novel Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow create images of natural beauty and purity and also of power and destruction with the same motif: snow.

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Both Scott Hicks's film Snow Falling on Cedars and Peter Hoeg's novel Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow create images of natural beauty and purity and also of power and destruction with the same motif: snow. The snow obviously shapes Smilla's world in a very conscious way, it is her ally in her struggle; whilst Ishmael's world is under attack literally and symbolically from this powerful natural force. The flickering lights of the courthouse capture the fragility of human reason and decency as the snow beats against the roof. Yet in both endings the snow comes to represent freshness and purity, and it is through the stories of Smilla and Ishmael that Hoeg and Hicks explore this transition. The snow falling in Smilla's world is quanick, large, light and magical and the fog obscuring Karl's world, possesses an equally mysterious quality. From these points of departure, both Hoeg's novel and Hicks's film begin to create worlds characterised and shaped by formidable weather. Both stories are powerfully conveyed by the vivid imagery of their settings. Hoeg opens his novel with a powerful prologue, set at a funeral; Smilla instantly informs us that weather, the seemingly limitless "December darkness", has influenced her mood. Smilla's