Northfork – Mark and Michael Polish

Nationality: USA

Year: 2004

Actually describing the plot of Northfork is a challenge as this is one of those films where ‘reality’ and ‘unreality’, ‘now’ and ‘then’ and ‘never’ all become blurred and where that simply doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t matter because the story takes you on a voyage – a voyage that stretches the mind like a good dream stretches it.

The setting is Montana – the wild lands.  1955.  And the small town of Northfork.  But progress is coming to this quiet place in the inescapable doom of the huge dam that will block this valley and drown it forever under rippling water.  And Northfork is a ghost town now – abandoned and already fading to dust.  Abandoned save for a few who refuse to budge, hoping for whatever miracle or divine protection to keep the water from their heads.  The eccentrics are concentrated here now by the pressure of water.  The man with two wives, who has turned his house into an ark.  The priest remaining to look after the dying orphan whose dreams are overrunning this land.  The four wandering angels holed up in a lonely house . . .

Northfork dreams quietly under the frowning presence of grey concrete.  And the only things that moves here now is the six men assigned to coax, persuade and bully these lingering souls out of the valley to higher ground.  Six forbidding, trenchcoated homberg-wearing men, weary from the strangeness of human nature.

The only things that move in this reality anyway.  For young Irwin, lying in a strange state between dream and death, things are rather different.  For Irwin, only one thing matters – escape.  Escape from the dreary dying reality of loneliness and sickness.  Escape to 1000 miles away, to be specific.  No one seems to want to adopt this fading shell of a person, so he lingers in the last occupied bed in the abandoned orphanage, his imagination reaching out into the surrounding world of imminent flood where he cannot.  Irwin knows that he is an angel.  Knows because of the surgical scars on his back where his wings once were.  The white feathers that occasionally grow from his skin.  And, out in the wilds of the valley, in a certain lonely house, four other angels have come to town looking for . . . something.  Someone.  They are named Cup of Tea, Flower Hercules, Happy and Cod.  As quirky and bizarre a quartet as ever set to screen.  Cup of Tea – the refined, sneering brit.  Flower Hercules – the brittle and tragic looking woman in a wig.  Happy – the ever-analytical genius with his amazing multipurpose and multi-lens spectacles.  And the silent and enigmatic Cod – automatic writer of scriptures in a cowboy hat.  Maybe these can provide what Irwin needs so desperately . . .

Is this just a dream that you dream when you are dying?  Or is there more?  Reality and dreams are becoming blurred here in the quiet universe of Northfork – and nothing is what it seems.  Why are the eviction committee offering angel wings for sale?  What weird phenomena are going on in that lonely house of angels?  It is this blurring and unpredictable reality that makes the exquisite magic of this film. 

Although Northfork is filled with Christian mythology and imagery, it is not really a religious film as such.  Instead, it is a voyage through the imagination and the way it functions, with the inevitable references to the mythology that surrounds us.  The fabulous quartet of Cup of Tea, Flower Hercules, Happy and Cod are far beyond anything that even makes sense in terms of a familiar, specific religion, for all that they are angels.  Indeed, they are some of the most delightfully unexpected characters I have ever seen in a film and their bickering and antics offer a rare and perfectly measured dash of real humour in this very haunting and sad film. 

In the end, this is one of the most straightforwardly beautiful films I know.  The mix of poignant emotion and quirky humour with an experimental and very modern aesthetic – in addition to the magical cinematography and beautiful environments and sets - is priceless.