The final picture in Mark and Michael Polish's trilogy of middle American tales (Twin Falls Idaho, Jackpot), Northfork is a slowly paced and elliptical piece of cinematic poetry, filmed in bleached-out colors that give it an almost black-and-white look. A dreamlike, coolly grotesque, bizarrely funny, and hauntingly beautiful ode to personal and communal roots, the film is a mesmerizing, hallucinatory fable of loss told as archetypal myth. Set in 1955, and consisting of two intersecting parts, the broader “real” story--even though it still has a surrealistic feel--involves the evacuation of the remaining residents of a Montana town about to be flooded by a new hydroelectric dam, a process conducted by pairs of laconic, identically-dressed agents going from house to distant house. The last-minute circuits of these harbingers of the town's demise alternate with the deathbed hallucinations of a terminally ill orphan as he's nursed by a curmudgeonly priest: the boy imagines a quartet of oddball angels in his delirium and dreams of flying off with them. Northfork is deliberately mystical and enigmatic; it's a leisurely, lyrical mood piece, a visionary mini-epic about the merging of past, present, and future; the longing for family; and the human pain that accompanies “moving to higher ground." Though likely to frustrate many, the film may prove an almost transcendent experience for those who tune in to its idiosyncratic wavelength. Highly recommended. [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by twin brother filmmakers Michael and Mark Polish, the seven-segment documentary “Bare Knuckle Filmmaking: The Construction of Northfork” (35 min.), the Sundance Channel Production “24 Frame News Segment: Northfork” (5 min.), a photo gallery, and trailers. Bottom line: a decent extras package for an indie film that will sharply divide viewers.] (F. Swietek)
Northfork
Paramount, 103 min., PG-13, VHS: $54.99, DVD: $29.99, Dec. 30 Volume 19, Issue 1
Northfork
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