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Movie: Northfork
Directed by Michael Polish; Written By Michael and Mark Polish
Starring James Woods, Nick Nolte, Daryl Hannah (Paramount Classics)
Reviewed by Rusty Pipes
Northfork is the third part of The Polish Brothers trilogy which began with Twin Falls, Idaho and continued in Jackpot. It's a starkly beautiful, original and very compelling film.
The plot sounds simple enough, in 1955 a new dam in Montana threatens to submerge the town of Northfork, where a few stubborn holdouts hang on to the land in spite of all the warnings. The dam has hired a group of men to undertake their moving -- they look like undertakers too, all dressed in black. James Woods is Walter O' Brien, who works in an Evacuation Committee team with his son, played by Mark Polish, the brother of the director. The O'Briens have been promised a prime parcel of lake front property if they move the allotted number of people, so they drive their black Ford coupe all over the valley to convince these poor misguided souls they are damned, er, dammed if they don't come with them.
Maybe "damned" is the right word. Another film might have been engaging enough on a common-folks-versus-progress level, but here it's just the launching point of a quirkily surreal story with several plot lines. Shot in high contrast and drained of color until it's nigh-black-and-white, biblical images abound -- the cemeteries are emptied of the dead like in the Book Of Revelation, the O'Briens find one resident has barricaded himself in an ark-like houseboat awaiting the flood with his two wives, another has nailed himself to the wood of his porch, and there are angels among Northfork's people.
It seems that herds of angels once roamed this land. One young orphaned angel, or at least he believes he's one, Irwin (Duel Farnes), is trying to find his way home too. He comes to a house that's been sawed in two for removal and finds another evacuation committee -- four strangely absurd beings who've been charged with rounding up the last of the angels. Daryl Hannah plays Flower Hercules who believes Irwin's claim, though he must prove it to the others.
Not everyone is aware of the angels in their midst, but Northfork's grizzled Father Harlan, played by Nick Nolte, seems to know all about them. Harlan's church has been sliced apart too, but he's still taking care of Irwin and holding services there. In one memorable scene he stands at his dais in front of an achingly beautiful mountain vista, as if that were the fourth wall of the church, intoning, "We are all angels, it is what we do with our wings that separates us."
If the Polish Brothers' Northfork isn't great filmmaking, I don't know what is.
The Skinny:
Did I enjoy the movie? Absolutely.
Would I go to see it again? Yes, there's quite a few more levels to this than you can absorb in one viewing, plus now I need to see Twins Falls and Jackpot.
© 2003 - Rusty Pipes