Picture of Light

This film is a strange, crystalline artifact, part cinema verité and part unabashed paean to the heavens. The earlier part of the film is almost a comedy of errors, as the film crew films itself on the train to Churchill, Manitoba, and ends up stuck in one of the town's few hotels during a blizzard. For fun, the hotel's owners shoots a hole in the wall with a high-power rifle, and they watch the snowflakes blow through the hole. But once the weather clears and the crew actually gets out to film their announced subject, the northern lights have never shimmered so brightly, in an ethereal silence never to be seen on a National Geographic special.

I saw this film at a conference in North Bay, Ontario -- and got the sense that it isn't seen much in the U.S. Too bad! It would be an excellent candidate for a widescreeen DVD release.