Far North

Someone in comments mentioned that this film is based on a short story by Sara Maitland written in "fairy-tale mode." Think Greek tragedy, or the Brothers Grimm at their grimmest, not Disney. Another commenter wondered if the story could actually work as a film. I don't think it does.

Most of the film is in a very realistic mode and only toward the end did the characters stop being people one could care about and become only tragic archetypes. I have to say I felt somewhat betrayed for caring so much for the characters. Perhaps if I'd been forewarned I would have watched with more detachment and been less disappointed.

Still, it's a beautiful film; the arctic landscape is awe inspiring. It must have been a great adventure to film. Sean Bean, Michelle Yeoh and Michelle Krusiec do an excellent job, but it seems like a waste in the end. 6/10 for being an interesting and beautiful failure.

In an unspecified land of tundra and ice, a mother and daughter, estranged from their tribes-people, alone and on the run from a brutal hired army, are struggling to survive in this harsh, desolate landscape. Into their lives walks an escaped press-ganged soldier, barely alive, and a tragic chain of events is set in motion.

London born film-maker Asif Kapadia knows how to capture isolation. He finds it in the sombre monochrome landscapes of this Arctic tale, and equally in the eyes of his lead actress, Michelle Yeoh. She plays Saiva, a woman who has borne a curse since birth foretelling that she will bring misfortune upon anyone who gets close to her. Forced out of her tribe, she lives nomadically, with only her grown-up daughter for company. Theirs is a never ending routine of hand-to-mouth survival and constant relocation to ever more lonely shores. The films' establishing shots of expansive ice flows are set to a soundtrack of groaning, creaking tension and cracks beneath the surface. Once Sean Bean's on- the-run Soldier arrives to upset the balance of their simple existence, it soon becomes apparent that Saiva shares much in common with the ice pack surrounding her.

So effectively does Asif conjure the quiet, contemplative mood and pace of much Scandinavian or Russian cinema that it comes as quite a shock when the main trio of characters open their mouths (which they do only rarely) and talk in English. The point is that it does not matter what language they speak, as the location and even the precise period of this story is kept deliberately vague. Just as it matters not what strange language it is that the other invading soldiers speak to themselves, only that it is not familiar. They are the aliens here.

For much of its short running time not a lot seems to be happening here, but there is not a wasted moment or unnecessary scene. Judicious use of flashbacks provide insight into the moments that have forged Saiva's tough and ruthless survival instincts. While in the present, much is communicated in silence by the glances of desire and jealousy that the trio exchange. Sean Bean comfortably inhabits the role of decent but morally weak man, but it's Michelle Yeoh's steely, haunted central performance that grabs and pulls you in. Like some Merchant-Ivory period drama stripped of all its airs and finery, we are in a world of suppressed emotions and mounting tensions. The palpable sense that something has to give is the overriding drive towards the startling climax.

FAR NORTH is a bleak, disturbing story about isolation, relationships and revenge. Director Asif Kapadia adapted this minimal dialogue screenplay with Tim Miller based on the story 'True North' by Sara Maitland, and even with the strong trio of actors, have managed to maintain the main character as the vast, natural, incomprehensibly difficult ice seas of the northern cap of the globe. The film is as majestically beautiful as the story is terrifying.

Saiva (Michelle Yeoh) was pronounced evil by a shaman who witnessed her birth: any person who comes near her will fall to harm. Cast out from her tribe, Saiva has survived into adulthood accompanied by the young girl Anja (Michelle Krusiec) she has raised, living a simple existence in tents, dependent on any available food, and always in hiding from a strange pursuing army of soldiers: flashbacks show how Saiva had been physically abused by this strange band of wandering men. When danger approaches, the two women simply move on. Saiva finds an injured and starving soldier Yoki (Sean Bean) who is likewise escaping from the marauding band, and brings him into her tent, nursing him to health, exchanging signs of friendship to a stranger that seems so natural yet so foreign to guarded Saiva. As Yoki recovers, Anja's curiosity about love and men is heightened and soon Anja and Yoki are planning to strike out on their own. When Saiva witnesses the passion between the two people in her life, she reacts as a threatened animal and the horrors that follow echo across the frozen ice of her isolated life.

Michelle Yeoh is astonishingly fine in this difficult role and Krusiec and Bean provide solid ensemble support. Praise must go to Asif Kapadia for his tense direction of this thriller, but kudos are also in order for the extraordinary cinematography by Roman Osin and the appropriately eerie musical score by Dario Marianelli. Much of what happens in this film is shocking to the viewer's senses, but it so in keeping with the animal responses in nature that it says much about our concept of 'civilization'. FAR NORTH is a remarkable achievement. Highly recommended. Grady Harp

Somewhat under-looked British director Asif Kapadia's 2007 film, Far North, opens with a rather exquisite tracking shot which sweeps across a very large, very open ice glacier that is shown to be split in several areas and thus, beginning to fall apart. The manner in which Kapadia's film opens echoes the manner in which it closes, with a similar tracking shot over what appears to be the same spread of ice – both sequences are representative of both the society within the film, as well as the mother-daughter bond two people of that ilk share and experience throughout. Cracks are initially there, as if something is melting or falling apart; and are apparent in the opening shot, while the condition of the glacier at the very end is representative of just how far things have come between the two people and the world around them as we witness those respective horrors and see the condition of the ice at the end.

Unfolding in a large and ice cold location, which is wide enough to encompass Russian soldiers; people whose names sound Nordic as well as characters whom might well be of either Kazakh or Tajik descent, although shot in Norway, the film covers the trials and experiences of a middle aged woman named Saiva (Yeoh) and her adopted younger daughter named Anja (Krusiec). Saiva and Anja's basic, but brutal, way of life is thrust into our faces by way of some shock tactics of animalistic levels, in which an animal itself is on the wrong end of some harm. This rather shocking sequence of raw predicament and must-do human survival consequently sets the overall tone of the film; that raw look at how human beings act and react when push turns to shove and emotions, sensations and predicaments must be confronted. Throughout, murder and savagery is the order of the day and desperate scenarios are used as the basis for the human mind to act as the subject of the study.

The film is narrated to us by Saiva, whose opening speech tells us of how a village elder of some description once told her many years ago that she would bring death and wrong-doing to whomever she cared for, or just generally loved. Looking up the daughter's name, Anja, on Wikipedia sees you directed to 'Anya'; which I read translates out of Russian and into English as 'bringing goodness', thus interestingly contradicting Saiva's supposed curse. The two seem to have gotten along rather well for all these years, what could possibly go wrong?

Saiva and Anja travel around quite a bit, in fact they travel a lot. Despite being located within the large, open and daunting snowy wilderness in which they're based; it cannot hide them from the dangers that lurk within. The reason for their constant moving around is due to a large group of Russian soldiers who, for unspecified reasons, are hopping from town-to-town; village-to-village; settlement-to-settlement, murdering the inhabitants; raping the women and pillaging any of the goods. Indeed, there is an altercation later on in which the threat of skinning a baby alive is issued by those nasty Russkies - crikey. The extent as to exactly what's going on is never fully explained, which is a route Kapadia wisely decides to go down so as to not veer too far away from what the film is essentially about: this rural set drama with essence of romance; horrifically looking at the results of conflict within a close-knit bond. What it isn't, is a war film exploring the extent of a conflict and consequent would-be escape of two innocents.

The conflict within arises when a certain Loki stumbles into their world. Loki, played by Sean Bean in a role that somewhat goes against his usual on-screen type, is found by one of the women when out on a hunting expedition. He is a solider, only he is not of the Russian variety, and seems to be in just as much danger as the women are in relation to them. Loki's introduction to the text, and his existence in the text, creates direct opposition to the established norms and ways of life the women go by. His entering the fray is a mixture of west meeting east; of male meeting female and of the modern world meeting the ancient. These ideas are expressed in his ability to introduce modernity to the two in the form of a transistor radio which clearly excites Anya, as well as the mending of a motor on the back the women's boat which they'd previously only got about in by way of rowing. The instance in which the motor starts running sees Saiva realise this, and has her cautiously approach the rear in an attempt to try and make sense of it all; since it is this new, unfamiliar and outside force now driving them.

Like the director's 2001 effort The Warrior, the film is beautiful but brutal in equal measure. It unfolds a stark, harsh narrative amidst the backdrop of a stunning locale in which unflinching content and the dire realities of life under these conditions, particularly in regards to garnering food by way of killing animals, is given as much focus as the characters themselves. The film's opinion of sex as an item, or event, that destroys and tears apart is reinforced when two people move closer by way of making-love, although it destroys someone else's link to both of them and also when a hideous realisation is made during an additional sex scene. While unfortunately denied of a universally wider release, and consequently more exposure, Far North is a frightening film that taps into the human mind and exposes its raw state of existence, and how ugly it can turn, by way of sin.

FAR NORTH is one of those simple little under-the-radar movies that you never heard about until it turns up in the middle of the night and you gradually become enthralled watching it. With no buzz, publicity, or plot spoilers, I had no idea what to expect when I sat down to watch this, and I was pleasantly surprised by a film that confounded all of my expectations. The film is almost like a fairy tale in its simplicity: a mother-and-daughter team, living alone in the icy Siberian wastes, are joined by a soldier gone A.W.O.L. The film is about what happens next: how the power shifts and inevitable romance affects each character, and three people in such an isolated setting can never really work.

Visually, the film is stunning. The inhospitable climate is a personality all in itself and the harshness of the landscape is captured in stunning detail – no more so than in the shocking opening sequence. There isn't a great deal of dialogue, but what we do get is natural and realistic. Key flashbacks add to the viewer's understanding and the film finishes on a shocking twist. Best of all is the acting: three actors giving excellent, against the grain performances.

Michelle Krusiec is the young unknown, holding her own against two experienced hands. Sean Bean is a gentle and romantic man, giving a more touching performance than we usually see. Michelle Yeoh is the older woman, an outsider struggling to come to terms with the meaning of her life. Out of all three, it's Yeoh who gives the most stunning performance; she's totally cast against type (usually playing a kick-ass kung fu heroine) and she gets her character across wonderfully. What a revelation!