Northern Light

Despite the cover art that will probably pigeonhole this as a sports film, director Nick Bentgen's cinema vérité Northern Light is more accurately ethnographic in its scrutiny of Upper Michigan's working class at play (and the region's stereotypical deer hunting is only briefly featured). Machinist Isaac Wolfgang stars on the regional racing circuit (stock cars in summer, snowmobiles in winter), enjoying relative affluence and renown. Meanwhile, his wife Emily strives to enter competitive bodybuilding. Truck driver Walt Komarnizki, on the eve of becoming a grandfather, still wants to race snowmobiles even though the pastime is taking its toll on his back. In between household dramas of pregnancies, job searches, and taking in a neighborhood girl whose home life has been destroyed by drugs, the families eagerly anticipate the annual Sault Ste. Marie International 500 Snowmobile Race, a grueling marathon of 500 laps. But when that's over, of course, life must go on. One gets a strong sense that Upper Peninsula people—written off by mainstream-media culture as rustic ice-fishing bumpkins or laid-off lumberjacks—are (not surprisingly) a lot like the rest of us. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)