Far North

FAR NORTH is a bleak, disturbing story about isolation, relationships and revenge. Director Asif Kapadia adapted this minimal dialogue screenplay with Tim Miller based on the story 'True North' by Sara Maitland, and even with the strong trio of actors, have managed to maintain the main character as the vast, natural, incomprehensibly difficult ice seas of the northern cap of the globe. The film is as majestically beautiful as the story is terrifying.

Saiva (Michelle Yeoh) was pronounced evil by a shaman who witnessed her birth: any person who comes near her will fall to harm. Cast out from her tribe, Saiva has survived into adulthood accompanied by the young girl Anja (Michelle Krusiec) she has raised, living a simple existence in tents, dependent on any available food, and always in hiding from a strange pursuing army of soldiers: flashbacks show how Saiva had been physically abused by this strange band of wandering men. When danger approaches, the two women simply move on. Saiva finds an injured and starving soldier Yoki (Sean Bean) who is likewise escaping from the marauding band, and brings him into her tent, nursing him to health, exchanging signs of friendship to a stranger that seems so natural yet so foreign to guarded Saiva. As Yoki recovers, Anja's curiosity about love and men is heightened and soon Anja and Yoki are planning to strike out on their own. When Saiva witnesses the passion between the two people in her life, she reacts as a threatened animal and the horrors that follow echo across the frozen ice of her isolated life.

Michelle Yeoh is astonishingly fine in this difficult role and Krusiec and Bean provide solid ensemble support. Praise must go to Asif Kapadia for his tense direction of this thriller, but kudos are also in order for the extraordinary cinematography by Roman Osin and the appropriately eerie musical score by Dario Marianelli. Much of what happens in this film is shocking to the viewer's senses, but it so in keeping with the animal responses in nature that it says much about our concept of 'civilization'. FAR NORTH is a remarkable achievement. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

Rarely does a move disturb me and haunt my thoughts for any length of time. This one has.

I highly recommend.

I will have to watch again because I wasn't paying the greatest attention to the foreshadowing and buildup, I wasn't sure where the movie was going, but man what a 'trippy' flick when it all unravels.

The way this movie was done is really cool, I wondered why everything started so vaguely, and now I realize how well that vagueness lent itself to the overwhelmingly powerful emotion of this movie. Almost channeled it in fact.

I am amazed at the range of feelings I experienced from this movie and how my feeling changed for the characters. I attribute that to the sincere acting, the dramatic story line, and the vivid yet harsh visual aspects.

In an unspecified land of tundra and ice, a mother and daughter, estranged from their tribes-people, alone and on the run from a brutal hired army, are struggling to survive in this harsh, desolate landscape. Into their lives walks an escaped press-ganged soldier, barely alive, and a tragic chain of events is set in motion.

London born film-maker Asif Kapadia knows how to capture isolation. He finds it in the sombre monochrome landscapes of this Arctic tale, and equally in the eyes of his lead actress, Michelle Yeoh. She plays Saiva, a woman who has borne a curse since birth foretelling that she will bring misfortune upon anyone who gets close to her. Forced out of her tribe, she lives nomadically, with only her grown-up daughter for company. Theirs is a never ending routine of hand-to-mouth survival and constant relocation to ever more lonely shores. The films' establishing shots of expansive ice flows are set to a soundtrack of groaning, creaking tension and cracks beneath the surface. Once Sean Bean's on- the-run Soldier arrives to upset the balance of their simple existence, it soon becomes apparent that Saiva shares much in common with the ice pack surrounding her.

So effectively does Asif conjure the quiet, contemplative mood and pace of much Scandinavian or Russian cinema that it comes as quite a shock when the main trio of characters open their mouths (which they do only rarely) and talk in English. The point is that it does not matter what language they speak, as the location and even the precise period of this story is kept deliberately vague. Just as it matters not what strange language it is that the other invading soldiers speak to themselves, only that it is not familiar. They are the aliens here.

For much of its short running time not a lot seems to be happening here, but there is not a wasted moment or unnecessary scene. Judicious use of flashbacks provide insight into the moments that have forged Saiva's tough and ruthless survival instincts. While in the present, much is communicated in silence by the glances of desire and jealousy that the trio exchange. Sean Bean comfortably inhabits the role of decent but morally weak man, but it's Michelle Yeoh's steely, haunted central performance that grabs and pulls you in. Like some Merchant-Ivory period drama stripped of all its airs and finery, we are in a world of suppressed emotions and mounting tensions. The palpable sense that something has to give is the overriding drive towards the startling climax.

This film truly is Far North of anything you've seen before. It caught me by surprise. Had second thoughts before seeing it. Was very happy to have seen it. Unusual story. Interesting. Well made. If there is something typical here its the way the director takes his time to depict the entire situation of the characters. He is not unlike other directors who are not concerned about not showing something every few minutes just to engage, excite or keep his audience. Patience is a virtue I am happy to have and which served me well in viewing this film. Those who are more into usual Hollywood fare (and those who like their films to be easily explained/understood) will probably not like this film. If you want to appreciate this film (and most works of art), you have to keep an open mind. I highly recommend this film.

Far North is like a half whispered tale told round a campfire way out in the tundra, a tale that keeps the fire going while freezing your blood. I'm not sure if it's based on some Inuit parable or fable, but it certainly has the aura of such. There's a whole lot of land up there, and most likely centuries of stories just like this one, witnessed only by the wolves and the winter cold, as well as the few hard bitten inhabitants who call it home. Michelle Yeoh is Saiva, an outcast from her tribe after being deemed cursed by her shaman at birth, left to wander the expanse alone. Her only companion is a young girl (Michelle Krusiec) who she rescued from marauding soldiers as a baby, and has raised somewhat as a daughter. The two live an isolated existence, until Saiva finds half dead soldier Loki (Sean Bean) wandering the tundra, and reluctantly takes him in. That's where trouble begins, as he takes a liking to the young girl, a bond is formed, and another is soured and broken. There's a third act shocker that will have your skin crawling, a jarring act of violence, deception and betrayal that leaves us feeling as cold and cast out as Saiva, an existence which probably foretold such horrors years ago when the shaman gazed upon her face. It doesn't quite fit with the lyrical beauty and ambient pace that came before, but it's definitely an unforgettable way to end the story, and a reminder of humans and their capacity for darkness. Roaming caribou, miles of ice, wandering wolves, and the few humans who survive out there, perhaps affected by something deeper, something elemental that lives in the very air. Not a perfect film, but fascinating and quite unlike any other. Oh, and a warning: there are some graphic and suspiciously realistic scenes of animal violence.