***1/2 (out of ****)
Starring James Woods, Nick Nolte, Duel Farnes, Peter Coyote, Anthony Edwards, Daryl Hannah, Mark Polish, Robin Sachs, Claire Forlani, Clark Craig, Ben Foster, and Kyle Maclachlan
Directed by Michael Polish & written by Mark Polish and Michael Polish
2002 (wide-release 2003)
103 min PG13
Dozen-or-So Best Films of 2003
“Northfork” is pretty hard to describe, but I think I have it figured out: it’s a movie about death. We watch a boy dying, a town dying, and imagine a woman’s coffin bobbing up to the surface of a lake. We also watch the priest watching over the boy, we watch the evacuation committee surveying what’s left of the town, and we watch the woman’s husband and son mull over whether to have her exhumed before the flood that will wash the town away. Depressing, yeah, I know, but we all have to put up with kicking the bucket some day.
As such, the movie is not terribly concerned with a story, because death is the end of the story, or at least where all the contrivances of narrative, which are just a way to cheat death anyway, are powerless. But “Northfork” is not at all a dirge, but a tale filled with wonders, oddities, and a much-needed sense of humor. It is also a film of fanciful and apocalyptic metaphors, not about the end of the world, but about the end of each individual’s little world. Death might come like a thief in the night but it can feel like the mountains are crashing into the ocean while the sky is coming down. The imagery is appropriate.
If I’m wrong, and “Northfork” is not really about death, then it is at least about confronting the inevitable. In the movie, progress has decided that the 1950s town of Northfork, Montana should be erased to make way for a reservoir. Hence the Old Testament-style flood. There are those who refuse to leave; perhaps they have refused to face the inevitable, or perhaps they have accepted their doom in a way that we just can’t understand. Through the eyes of the evacuation committee, we meet a man who has nailed his feet to his patio, and another (Marshall Bell) who has turned his house into an ark, complete with two wives. Death faces the father and son pair (James Woods and Mark Polish) on the evacuation committee in the form of a coffin.
Dreamstate, metaphor, and reality run together freely in “Northfork.” The dying boy (Duel Farnes) walks through not only a picture-book history of the town but also meets a bizarre quartet (Anthony Edwards, Daryl Hannah, Robin Sachs, and Ben Foster) who may be hallucinations built from the objects around him, or who may really be angels. And what about the contents of those boxes the evacuation committee is handing to those who refuse to leave? Those can’t possibly be real, can they?
In the way in which its characters have lost control over where they live, which is a huge portion of their destinies, “Northfork” is reminiscent of one of last year’s best movies, “13 Conversations About One Thing.” Both movies share the theme that what we do in life is not nearly as important as our attitude toward what is done to us. As citizens of a democracy we like to think of life as something we can control. But the world of “Northfork” reminds us that we are more often than not just small creatures riding the back of a large, large world. We watch how this is not the first time the world has moved under Northfork: in flashbacks, we see the buffalo that used to graze the land, we see paintings of the first human inhabitants, we hear about the first European settlers. And now the land is moving again. But “Northfork” is hopeful. The parish priest (Nick Nolte) reminds us of the covenant that God has made with all creatures; that no matter how small we may appear, our humanity will always make us just a little bit larger.
Yet “Northfork,” like most great, strange movies, is not without a sense of humor about its own weirdness, and has moments as off-kilter as any Coen brothers’ movie. The angels’ background music is appropriately hokey and the DVD commentary confesses that Anthony Edwards’ supernatural being is openly based on PBS’ “Antiques Roadshow.” A Paul Harvey-style radio announcer follows the evac committee wherever they go. The committee members themselves wear matching black suits and overcoats, and drive matching black Fords. When they enter Northfork’s last diner, an odd game ensues in which they try to guess what entrees, if any, are still available. The scene aboard the ark features Marshall Bell (better known as Kuato), an under-appreciated comic character actor who plays the absurd with such goofy, barely-contained urgency. Then there’s the pseudo-profound discussion about how America is being divided into Ford people and Chevy people, a creepy game of duck-duck-goose, and the outhouse in the middle of nowhere that looks like a confessional.
Twin filmmakers Michael and Mark Polish (who played twin burglars in “The Good Thief”) tell their story in a stark, minimalist language, with one gorgeous, strange, perfectly-framed image after another, supernatural and yet very naturally beautifully. Montana is a vast, empty place in the winter, a land of enormous plains with glaciers in the background and luminous pillow clouds pierced by blades of sunlight. Northfork is located somewhere between the edge of the world and an Edward Hopper painting come to life. Clouds are reflected on car windshields, light streams from windows in glorious, overblown rays, fedoras shadow faces, and one luminous sunset follows another. The DVD doesn’t do cinematographer David Mullen justice, who treats us to occasional glimpses of the world in sepia, or as if we’re looking at it through a washed-out rainbow. The angels seem to have built themselves, both clothes and bodies, from history’s garage sale. The movie is even more amazing when we realize it was done on a budget of around 2 million dollars, which is about a fifth of what Arnold Schwarzenegger was paid to make “Terminator 2,” way back in 1992.
But, really, no definition of “Northfork” will do it justice. Either my description of the movie has intrigued you, or it hasn’t. The movie is more about mood and atmosphere than about story and what happens next. I’m not sure if I know to what all the images add up, but sometimes just seeing them is enough. Nine out of ten movies make us forget we’re going to die, usually by showing superheroes in leotards smashing large everyday objects into tiny, vaguely recognizable bits. But every now and then it’s time for that tenth movie. Have a happy New Year.
Finished January 2nd, 2004
Copyright © 2004 Friday & Saturday Night
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