Northfork (2003)

just watch it!

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

this film haunted me so well that I had to watch it twice in a day.The cast and performances are great specially James Woods and Nick Nolte's which I shall always remember them for this film. The cinematography with its dreamlike grey colour is beautiful.every element matches so perfectly and creates the atmosphere to tell the story of a disappearing town and the realm of after life in a very Innocent poetic way rather then having a depressing approach which can easily be done. The costume and set design is very surreal which would satisfy the fans of surreal arts.If you have an imagination and are able to have creative dreams ,you will love this film and could become one of your memorable dreams. This film also have a neat sense of humour which is admirable.

Maybe because my grandmother homesteaded in Montana and my dad grew up there in a log cabin, but Montana holds a special place in my otherwise-urban heart. Instead of going for the lush color-saturated beauty of "A River Runs Through It," the Polish brothers have captured the stark beauty of Montana winter, evoking a b&w film by various means of color desaturation, from art direction to assorted film processing techniques, to good effect in my humble opinion. So the palette of gray scale and sepia and flesh tones, pale blue sky and silver airplane and concrete dam, effectively supports the dreamlike quality. The two stories interweave gracefully - it worked beautifully for me. The acting is of a very high standard (although I suspect it may have required judicious editing of the "Irwin" performance, as is often the case with child actors); the writing reminds me of skipping a stone across a lake, touching lightly on various elements before moving into the depths. I enjoyed the direction and editing a lot although I can imagine that some people would find the some of the cuts too "artistic" - but then I like movies that recognize they're movies and they can juxtapose visuals and elements in a way that we can't, living day to day.

The frustrating thing about a movie like this, with a true potential for greatness, is that it almost enjoys being heavy-handed. We speak of allegory, of metaphor...but the truth is, there's no getting around the fact that there is absolutely no plot or real character.At a certain point, we most know who the people are...even if we never understand where they are going. The sheer pretentiousness wore me down every time I tried to grasp a truth in this film.Call it beautiful, great and awesome...I just call it "cheating." All style and no substance. Sure, it's a matter of taste...but I would never take a confusing modernist pastiche of symbols and splashes over the spiritual clarity of Jean Cocteau or Renoir. But if it works for you, I'm all for it. Art is a personal thing, I guess.

Spiritual epiphany is a deeply personal experience. Where some clear glasses wearing posers from Islington may consider Northfork to be a profound and artistic revelation, I on the other hand see it as a soporific test of self indulgence.Occasionally my girlfriend tricks me into watching films that are so pretentious you just want to scream; this is one of them, although if I did snuggle up enough with gentle petting so she would let me hear her scream later on:>, which I like a whole lot more than films about angels, my second this month.'Northfolk' is one of those movies that is so deliberately over the top and annoying because it wants to shout out-look at me-look what we have done with this script!-we are real ac-tors!!!No you're not, your showing off; it really is like watching four Alan Rickman's at once; if you can possibly imagine that. Set in 1950s Middle America, residents of the small town of Northolk have to evacuate their valley because a dam construction project will soon flood it. But some won't budge so the government has sent the men in black, headed by James Woods, to evict them, including the last of the dead who are being dug up from the old cemetery where a scary fire and brimstone priest in Nick Nolte is also holding out against the hydro electric company. You don't see the dam or any water but the tension and resentment is rising like the creeping unseen torrents that will soon envelope their lives and homes.OK, so far so good, bit of intrigue, bit of tension, and bit of mystery. Then the Polish directing team of brothers, Mark and David, the hit the vodka and introduce some angles, seemingly straight from the scissor sisters judging by their attire. Enter Daryl Hannah as 'Flower Hercules' and four more cherubs with equally silly names. Their mission we are unsure off although the suggestion of the departed talking to people that are seemingly still alive then suggests all is not as it seems.With four householders and their homes still holding out, one shaped like Noah's Ark, a likewise number of men-in-black, headed by agent Walter O'Brien, (Woods), are ready to evict as the slues gates begin to turn. The stragglers on the other hand are waiting for a sign from God to tell them when to leave as their families have been living in the valley since 1776.The key to the yarn is a five year old kid (Dual Fernes), near to death, slipping in and out of conscious in Father Horton's crumbling church. The angels in question are here to see the little boy as he may be some sort of chosen won as he flits between life and death. This is also Kyle MacLachlan territory, he of Twin Peaks, fame, of which this film really reeks of; his casting as the reluctant hero who's the family man behind the rebellion. But what does this all mean as far as a film goes?The Thinking on this…It's a mess of a posturing movie and in truth makes no real sense. Has the valley already been flooded and these people are now dead or are the angels here to redeem them. There are plenty of clues for the later and I'm sure the bodies being dug up are a hint, but I was no the wiser at the end, all two hours of it.It's clearly a pet project by the brothers Polish, who write, produce and edit here, and the clout of previous success like the spooky' Twin Falls Idaho' gave them too much free reign. It is beautifully filmed and superbly lit, with every frame a surreal masterpiece, but where's the constructive narrative and meaning to this guys? I really didn't get it and there are only so many surreal metaphors I can handle.Its arty-farty stuff and will only really appeal to Bohemian types who can see 'inner meaning' and the spiritual message man. To me its looks like something that no one reigned in and trusted the direction to little effect. As the big fat prison guard in 'Cool Hand Luke' said to Paul Newman:" What we have here is a failure to communicate".The extra bits on DVD.The making off segment is equally pretentious as Nick Nolte-in his half moon glasses- tries to explain the 'deep meaning's' to the film and why he took this project and gave it everything he had. Bo**ocks, your too old for action flicks and they paid you cash up front here.Trailers. Galleries. Film biographies.