Northfork

"It all depends on how you look at it –we are either halfway to heaven or halfway to hell," says the priest Rev. Harlan in "Northfork." The Polish brothers' film is an ambitious one that will make any intelligent viewer to sit up, provided he or she has patience and basic knowledge of Christianity. The layers of entertainment the film provide takes a viewer beyond the surreal and absurd imagery that is obvious to a less obvious socio-political and theological commentary that ought to provoke a laid-back American to reflect on current social values. The film's adoption of the surreal (coffins that emerge from the depths of man-made lakes to float and disturb the living, homesteaders who nearly "crucify" their feet to wooden floor of their homes, angels who need multiple glasses to read, etc.) and absurd images (of half animals, half toys that are alive, of door bells that make most delicate of musical outputs of a harp, a blind angel who keeps writing unreadable tracts, etc.) could make a viewer unfamiliar with the surreal and absurdist traditions in literature and the arts to wonder what the movie is un-spooling as entertainment. Though European cinema has better credentials in this field, Hollywood has indeed made such films in the past —in "Cat Ballou", Lee Marvin and his horse leaned against the wall to take a nap, several decades ago. "Northfork," in one scene of the citizens leaving the town in cars, seemed to pay homage to the row of cars in "Citizen Kane" taking Kane and his wife out of Xanadu for a picnic.

The film is difficult for the uninitiated or the impatient film-goer—the most interesting epilogue (one of the finest I can recall) can be heard as a voice over towards the end of the credits. The directors seem to leave the finest moments to those who can stay with film to the end. If you have the patience you will savor the layers of the film—if you gulp or swallow what the Polish bothers dish out, you will miss out on its many flavors.

What is the film all about? At the most obvious layer, a town is being vacated to make way for a dam and hydroelectric-project. Even cemeteries are being dug up so that the mortal remains of the dead can be moved to higher burial grounds. Real estate promoters are hawking the lakeside properties to 6 people who can evict the townsfolk. Of the 6, only one seems to have a conscience and therefore is able to order chicken broth soup, while others cannot get anything served to them.

At the next layer, you have Christianity and its interaction on the townsfolk. Most are devout Christians, but in many lurk the instinct to survive at the expense of true Christian principles, exemplified in the priest. Many want to adopt children without accepting the responsibilities associated with such actions.

At the next layer, you have the world of angels interacting with near angelic humans and with each other. You realize that the world of the unknown angel who keeps a comic book on Hercules and dreams of a mother, finds one in an androgynous angel called "Flower Hercules." While the filmmaker does give clues that Flower is an extension of the young angel's delirious imagination, subsequent actions of Flower belie this option. You are indeed in the world of angels--not gods but the pure in spirit—and therefore not in the world of the living. The softer focus of the camera is in evidence in these shots.

At another layer the toy plane of Irwin becomes a real plane carrying him and his angels to heaven 1000 miles away from Norfolk.

The final layer is the social commentary—"The country is divided into two types of people. Fords people and Chevy people." Is there a difference? They think they are different but both are consumerist.

To the religious, the film says "Pray and you shall receive" (words of Fr Harlan, quoted by Angel Flower Hercules). To the consumerist, the film says "its what we do with our wings that separate us" (each of the 6 evictors also have wings-one duck/goose feather tucked into their hat bands but their actions are different often far from angelic as suggested by the different reactions to a scratch on a car).

The film is certainly not the finest American film but it is definitely a notable path-breaking work--superb visuals, striking performances (especially Nick Nolte), and a loaded script offering several levels of entertainment for mature audiences.

Never having seen a Polish brothers movie, I approached this with no expectations.

Somewhere in Montana in 1952 (though everything suggests an earlier date and the cars, as usual, are too perfect looking), a plain is to be flooded by a dam and a team of men in black suits is sent out to coax the few recalcitrant remaining inhabitants to vacate the properties. Each pair of evacuators is supposed to be awarded one and a half acres of prime lakefront property if they can prove that 65 locations assigned to them have been vacated. One team is James Woods (as Walter O'Brian) and his son Willis (Mark Polish). They're also supposed to remove Wood's character's wife's coffin because graves are supposed to be dug up to prevent the coffins' floating up in the flooded land. Needless to say, this makes little literal sense: the references here are to the American frontier mentality, to imperialism, land grabbing, materialism, and impiety, which the Polish brothers are impressionistically dealing with throughout this strange and highly allegorical film.

Meanwhile Nick Nolte is Father Harlan, a deranged priest running a decrepit orphanage to which a fleeing couple return a small boy they adopted earlier (Duel Farnes, who is fine) because, they say, he was `defective,' being sick all along, and is now too sick to travel.

Much of what follows revolves around the boy and may constitute his dying delirium or fantasy that he is an angel. He meets Daryl Hannah (Flower Hercules) in a graveyard in a wig and Elizabethan costume and goes back with her to see her pals, Cup of Tea (Robin Sachs, also in Elizabethan drag), Happy (Anthony Edwards, with a bizarre complex of adjustable spectacles on), and Cod (Ben Foster, a wordless young man in a bejeweled cowboy hat), and begs them to take him away from this place with them – 1,000 miles away, he insists. They bargain over the distance: this may constitute the denial and bargaining of the dying person.

At its center the film cuts back and forth with lugubrious regularity between this scene, in which the boy tries to claim he has scars from where he used to have wigs and a halo (Cup of Tea is unconvinced, Hannah is weepily sympathetic, Happy is scientifically neutral, and Cod is mute) – and scenes focused either exclusively on the band of evacuators or, as the film progresses, on them in encounters, variously hostile, fearful, or unfriendly, between them and the stubborn or oblivious holdouts on the land. One team is shot at, their car nearly demolished. Woods and son deal with a man with two wives who's built an ark. They fail to convince all three to leave, and, having evidence of only 64 evacuations, receive no land document.

Nick Nolte all the while is seen trying to save the boy, whom at one point he offers to Kyle McLaughlin and wife (Mr. and Mrs. Hope: this begins to sound like Pilgrim's Progress), but they aren't allowed to view the boy up close, only through a window, so they leave empty-handed (Hope without Faith thus disappointed). Nolte, Father Harlan, also goes to a pharmacist and gets antibiotics which he injects in the boy; he bathes him, reads to him, etc., but all efforts fail and the boy dies, apparently. Meanwhile scenes of the boy with Daryl Hannah et al. continue. In the end they all fly away in a big plane just like the little one in the boy's lap. Cod is his co-pilot.

Much is made of a set of putative `angel's wings,' big snowy white bird's wings which inexplicably are carried around in a large suitcase and shown both to the man with two wives and to Hannah and company.

Though no doubt enormously puzzling and open to many interpretations, it must be said that compared to something like Alejandro Joderovsky's El Topo, which this inexplicably reminded me of, Northfork makes much coherent narrative sense. Somehow the apocalyptic mood and the presence of dubious priests, spectral landscapes, and semi-mythological characters also bring Cormac McCarthy to mind, but the movie lacks McCarthy's vivid regional character and colloquial down home talk.

What it all means is more than I can venture to say in any more detail here. The tedium of the pacing might be more unfortunate if it were not to some extent relieved by an omnipresent sense of humor and also by a loyal and able cast and a stunning cinematography that combines colorless dimness with exquisite clarity in ways that heighten the pervasive sense of the surreal.

There is no doubt at all that the Polish brothers are originals. If hip young people and art film cultists like this film as much as Roger Ebert (who inexplicably believes the loquacious and visually acute Happy to be both blind and mute), Northfork will be on some level a stunning success. To many it is likely to remain arid and incomprehensible . . .and not sexy and scary like David Lynch. But the vision is unique -- and not as incomprehensible as it may seem.

Like the Polish Brothers' previous films (`Twin Falls Idaho' and `Jackpot'), `Northfork' divides audiences even as it baffles and bewilders them. Many will surely find this film to be slow moving, arty, pretentious and boring, while others will be intrigued by its originality and visionary quality. Either way you slice it, however, `Northfork' is an acquired taste.

It's 1955 and Northfork, a small town on the plains of Montana, is about to be wiped off the face of the earth by a gigantic flood. Only this time the destruction won't be the result of the angry hand of Providence but rather of a dam building project developed and conceived by the government in the name of `progress.' Out of this simple premise, Mark and Michael Polish have crafted an elegy to the past, a tone poem that reflects the deep sadness that comes with change, abandonment and loss. To achieve their effect, the writers have incorporated large doses of Magic Realism (with heavy religious and Biblical overtones) into their narrative. While we observe the harsh realities of people being driven from their homesteads, we are also introduced to a quartet of angels who are searching for one of their number who went missing a number of years earlier. Legend has it that the town of Northfork was originally looked out for by a group of guardian angels and it is from this rather twisted and bent angle that the Polish Brothers have chosen to approach their subject.

`Northfork' is far more about mood, imagery and tone than it is about plot and character development. In fact, the characters themselves – the angels, a caring priest, a dying boy, and a father and son whose job it is to make sure no people are left behind when the land is inundated – are as subdued in tone as the film is as a whole. None of the characters ever speaks above a whisper and each comes across as moody, introspective and stolid. It is in the visuals and in the unhurried, subtle pacing of the narrative that the film achieves its power. The dry barren plains, the weather beaten houses, the violated cemeteries, and the isolated figures of men and buildings placed in stark relief against an imposing horizon – these are the images that seep inexorably into the viewer's subconscious and which make the film a stunning study in melancholy. Let it be noted, however, that there is also a modicum of hope and optimism in the story to help mitigate the sadness.

A number of big name stars have leant their talents to the project, including Nick Nolte, James Woods and Daryl Hannah. Woods, with his straight-faced, deadpan delivery, provides some much needed touches of black humor throughout the otherwise deadly serious work.

`Northfork' definitely requires that you be in a certain mood to appreciate and enjoy it. Hopefully, you'll hit it at just the right moment.

this is a very special movie, driven by imagery and character rather than by linear action or even plot. Things progress along two lines which eventually converge, that of the dying child cared for by the Father, and the evacuation of the valley. The child, delirious, is pulled back and forth between two realms, while the Father waits upon his dying. Nick Nolte plays this part with enormous sensitivity and restraint. The evacuation teams seem to suggest a parallel to the Biblical flood, and eventually the two lines of action merge into a dream state, as if the flood is waiting for the child, as well. James Woods gives a deceptively simple, finely nuanced performance, providing emotional depth and focus to the story line. The question seems to be, is the flood the waters of life, or the waters of death? Or is it both at the same time? The writers seem to feel that in the final analysis, there is no difference between the two. Rather than leaving one disheartened, this film uplifts.

I enjoyed this film's surreal nature and mysteriousness of the characters. The cinematography is beautiful, and the film is well-cast. Although I usually do not like Nick Nolte and the roles he plays, he showed great depth in this film.

Viewers who are unaccustomed to abstract film-making will find the plot disturbingly confusing, but I thought the transcendent themes overode the ambiguuities. If you absolutely HAVE to "understand" the film, just listen to the director's comments on the DVD. Doing this, however, diminishes the abstract beauty of the film--the way an art expert can ruin the experience of a fascinating painting in a museum.

By an odd coincidence, I had toured the locale for this film only a few months before purchasing it, and I thought the director captured the awesome yet austere nature of western Montana well.

The film is worth seeing just for the scenery and cinematography alone, and it offers many interesting topics for sociological discussions. I have already recommended it to number of my friends who appreciate esoteric films.