thought about Northfork for a long time after the movie ended. I thought about it while sitting in the theater for about ten minutes after the credits rolled. I thought about it on the subway ride home. I thought about it that night just before I went to bed. And despite a hectic time at work, I thought about it intermittently the day after I saw it. I suspect I will be thinking about it for quite some time.


Northfork is the kind of film that eases its way under your skin and doesn’t leave. It has more to say about death, loss, and the purity of innocence than just about any mawkish tearjerker starring Meryl Streep or Michelle Pfeiffer. The Polish brothers, Mark and Michael, have crafted a profoundly beautiful film that uses elements of magical realism, impressionism, and surrealism to tell what is essentially a fable. I’m still trying to work out exactly what happened at certain points in the movie—there are strands of meaning here that will only be fully discerned after two or three viewings. But that’s fine, because the Polishes (Michael directs, Mark acts, and they both wrote the screenplay) are less interested in literal narrative cohesion than they are in creating images and tones that will impart meaning on an almost subconscious level. Often, that kind of filmmaking is merely an excuse for slapping onto the screen whatever crap the director once saw in a dream or acid-inspired “vision” and calling it art, no matter how incomprehensible or masturbatory it might be. But here, the brothers succeed in creating a genuine piece of art that has the capacity to truly move an open-minded audience.


The plot of Northfork is deceptively simple. In 1955, a dam has been constructed, and as a consequence the town of Northfork, Montana is about to be flooded and turned into a lake. Looking like stand-ins from Reservoir Dogs, six black-suited men have been assigned to evacuate the local residents, some of whom are proving recalcitrant about moving from their homes. The film cuts back and forth between this story and one of a sick little orphan boy, abandoned by his foster parents and cared for by the local priest Father Harlan (Nick Nolte). The boy, named Irwin, compensates for his loneliness by imagining (or are they real?) a group of angels who are preparing to take him away with them. In reality, both the boy and the town are dying, and the film functions as an elegy for both of them.


Northfork features images and themes that are beautiful in their stillness and somber tone, but also provides moments of unexpected and thus especially welcome humor. Two of the evacuators are a father and son tandem (James Woods and Mark Polish), who find themselves attempting to convince a man who has built a Noah’s Ark in anticipation of the upcoming flood that he has to leave the town. Imagining himself as a Noah figure, the man has taken two of everything, including wives, and will not budge. Woods’ attempt at changing this odd little family’s mind is a comic highlight (“you must be Mrs. Stalling, and you must be, um, Mrs. Stalling...”).


But Northfork’s humor weaves in and out amongst its sadness, and the viewer begins to realize that many of the major characters suffer deep emotional pain. Gradually, it is revealed that Woods is in fact mourning the death of his wife, and his son is mourning his mother. Neither acknowledges this explicitly, but over time the conversations the two men have reveals the truth. This is in welcome contrast to the ham-handed way in which Hollywood usually announces that a character is grieving (“My wife died, and now I’m sad”). Even the angels are suffering. Flower Hercules (Daryl Hannah), demonstrates a parent’s love for Irwin and is devastated when it appears that the angels cannot take him with them.


Father Harlan, too, is in pain. He functions as the film’s conscience, although it is worth pointing out that even the evacuators aren’t depicted as villains, but rather as weary men coping with their own problems and trying to do a difficult and not especially enjoyable job. Harlan knows that little Irwin is dying, but cares for him with great love and tenderness. How Nick Nolte turned in this quiet, beautifully restrained performance after his gloriously over-the-top rabid foaming in Hulk is beyond me, but it’s clear that despite his personal problems, the man is having one hell of a year artistically. The final scenes between he and Irwin practically brought tears to my eyes, because of both the story’s emotional impact and my appreciation for the gorgeously artistic way in which the scenes were shot.


This film is probably not for everyone. I was enraptured from the beginning, while others in the theater walked out in disgust, presumably over the film’s slow tone and occasional detours into narrative surrealism. But the patient and open-minded filmgoer will be rewarded immeasurably by seeing this movie. Northfork is a strange, haunting, moving, and beautiful film. If there is a better movie released this year, I look forward to seeing it.