Susan Granger’s review of “Northfork” (Paramount Classics)
Strictly for an art-house audience, this is a quirky American Gothic history/fantasy about a Montana town that was “dammed” by local government as part of a new hydroelectric project in 1955. A rambling, ambiguous rumination on dreams and death, loss and resurrection, it’s the final segment of the Heartland trilogy, which includes “Twin Falls, Idaho” and “Jackpot,” created by independent film-making brothers Mark and Michael Polish. The mystical story revolves around a group of six Evacuators, men in trench coats and fedoras, driving black Fords, who have been promised 1.5 acres of new waterfront property if they can each get 65 of the most stubborn residents to abandon their homes before the town of Northfork is, literally, flooded. And only 48 hours remains before the coming tidal wave. Led by a father/son team (James Woods, Mark Polish), their mission takes them to visit eccentrics including a devout polygamous family who have built an Ark. Meanwhile, a priest (Nick Nolte) tends a dying orphan (Duel Farnes), abandoned by his foster parents (Kyle MacLachlan, Michele Hicks), who hallucinates about a band of earthbound Angels, comprised of cynical Cup of Tea (Robin Sachs), mute Cod (Ben Foster), androgynous Flower Hercules (Daryl Hannah) and Happy (Anthony Edwards), an amputee with wooden hands and multi-lensed spectacles. What’s most remarkable about the imaginative eccentricity of “Northfork” is its sepia-toned photography and haunting, evocative imagery – like a submerged coffin that floats to the flood water’s surface and a wooden giraffe/dog creature on the flatlands. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Northfork” is a subtle, surreal, absurdist 6. It takes magical realism to a new level.
