A Northern Review

There are some movies that you come across by accident and it turns out to be a modest gem that you have to get the word out.

The film “Far North” is very much like this.

You want to make a movie very cheap. You do it like this. You get a couple of known actors, an isolated area and a few sets, nothing more. It isn't very expensive to make. But you are still able to make a statement just as well as any explosive, much hyped blockbuster movie doped with the stupid.

“Far North” isn't like that. The film is independently made and didn't get a very wide release. It's probably better this way. It was directed by Asif Kapadia and based on a Sara Maitland short story.

But I also argue that it is a horror film. Which is why the film “Far North” finds its way into the pages of my blogs.

Some might ask me, “A horror movie?”

Yes.

The film centers on nomadic Asian women, a mother and daughter, who goes across the northern regions looking for safe points to rest at. They are alone in the midsts of snow and ice. The mother, played by Michelle Yeoh, performs very well as a woman who is still haunted by her past. And moreover, the curse that was given to her family by a shaman telling her that harm will come to those she loved most. Then a third person, a man, played by Sean Bean, enters the foray and complicates matters... a sea of feelings begin to swirl as they fall into a strangest love triangle you have ever seen. But the feelings of desire becomes that of jealousy and rage.

It sounds like a drama movie. And it is. But there are many elements of horror to be found in the film that could be easily missed.

The film is set in absolute isolation. There is nothing here except for the vastness of snow banks and water that were iced over by the winter season. There are miles and miles of nothingness seen in every direction except for the large white hills and the rocky slopes trampled by low temperatures. It is a frightening place to be living.

There is only one way of getting food which is through hunting. So the skills of the hunter must be important to surviving in the winter trap. The world has become a forsaken place filled with torturous loneliness and it remains indifferent to those who live in it.

There are many scenes of animals being cut up and prepared for food. This is merely a point of the movie that is preparing for the worst in the end.

Michelle Yeoh's character has several flashbacks when she is a younger woman. Many people say that these portions of the film are stark and fake. But I disagree. The pieces of the past show a woman formed by loneliness as she watches as a young woman the only man she loved killed by poachers. And she was forced to kill someone.

Yeoh is a very good actress as seen here. There is no room for her to use her martial arts in a story like this. Nor would there have to be. The story is centered on motherhood. And the boundaries of motherhood that could push one over the edge. She saves her daughter from the poachers before she sets her life in hiding. Yeoh is to be commended here for making a convincing performance of a mother who is a little bit crazy.

But the horror of the film comes in the end. And I'm not giving anything away here as it is one of the bleakest things to hit the screens. If you do not wish to be spoiled by the ending, don't read on. But for others who may have a macabre interest, please do keep going. Because this is where fiction and reality becomes so blurred that it is like hell exploding in the middle of the wintry landscape.

Feelings and desire snap between the three people in a close knot together. Bean becomes attracted to both the mother and daughter. I don't blame them. They are both very beautiful in their own ways. But the daughter is teasing like a young girl discovering her sexual desires for the first time. The mother is discovering herself as if she is a young woman again. The mixed feelings become very dangerous and uncertain. There are times when the mother warned the man to stay away or there will be consequences.

It is what the mother does to the daughter that is very horrifying... you don't see the gore in the film. Nor do you have to. But she cuts her daughter up Ed Gein style and tries to pass herself as a younger woman in one of the most warped endings. You'll find that the character Sean Bean plays simply runs off in the middle of the lovemaking after he finds out what has befallen him... and he runs naked out in the snow.

It's a very brutal and savage movie. And therefore it takes a very small place in the realm of horror fiction. But it is a beautiful film too for all the location work done here. You'll find no explosions here or any action. You'll find no eye candy special effects masking themselves as a story.

What you'll find is a very disturbing story which explores the humanity of people. And what loneliness could do to someone if he or she remains on their own for the longest time. Such loneliness can takes it toll on anyone. People always want to be loved and felt like they belong to someone. Some people will do anything, anything, to have their feelings reciprocated. The butchery of humanity can often be an expression of feeling, however morbid.