Northern Lights

Northern Lights (1978) was written and directed by John Hanson and Rob Nilsson. The setting is rural North Dakota about a century ago.

The film stars Robert Behling as Ray Sorensen, a young farmer who works on his father's farm with his brother John, portrayed by Joe Spano. Susan Lynch plays the woman Ray loves, Inga Olsness. The rest of the cast are non-professionals. They're local people in North Dakota.

This is a powerful film about the hardships of crushing poverty, despite the strong work ethic of the farmers. Big business interests and conservative politicians conspired to bring the farmers into debt, which ultimately lead to the foreclosure of their farms.

As the movie progressives, we follow Ray Sorensen as he recognizes the injustices around him, and becomes an organizer for the liberal Nonpartisan League (NPL). In the early 20th Century, many NPL candidates were elected to government offices. The party enacted its progressive programs, including establishing state-owned banks, mills, and a railroad.

The film was amazingly effective in making us feel--not just see--the cold weather and the terrible predicament in which good people found themselves.

The absolutely brilliant b/w cinematography was the work of Judy Irola. Almost every frame could be enlarged into a great still photo.

If you can't see this film, you obviously can't appreciate it, and that's the problem. We found an unused VHS, which hadn't deteriorated too badly.

Previous reviewers have lamented the lack of this movie in DVD. No copies are available in DVD or VHS on Amazon or eBay. Some colleges own copies, so maybe you could get the film via interlibrary loan.

Northern Lights has an anemic 7.0 IMDb rating. I'm not sure why it's so low. It's much better than that.

This is a great movie. It would surely work better on a large screen, but it worked well enough for us on VHS. If you can find it, see it!

I am a descendant of Norwegian farmer immigrants to Minnesota, from the late 1800's, and loved Northern Lights. I just watched another movie called "Sweet Land" from 2005, that is more than similar to Northern Lights, and equally as good! Sure wish my grandpa was still alive to see them both,as they were a mirror of his life. He was born in 1883 and passed away in 1983 at 100.

Socialism was very popular back then as the farmers were often cheated out of a fair price for their crops. As a result many desperate farmers went on to participate in the fledgling communist party of the day, as did an uncle of mine, who moved to Canada and held the number 2 spot there in the 1940's.

A dramamentary of the forming of the Non-Partisan League in North Dakota -- this stark, loving film portrays the struggle of the local NoDaks versus the railroads, banks and granaries controlled by distant Minnesotans. This is a classic that reaches toward the level of "Salt of the Earth."

... in the middle of a community. the images, the dialogues, the landscapes, the gestures. more powerful than the story itself. because it is a well known fight for justice. because the sadness and the enthusiasm for a fragile cause are familiar from neo-realism. and the events are good reference to " Terra tremula". but it is more than a chronicle . or hommage. or remember. it is one of films who you expect. as a sort of refuge. as the meet with old fashion cinema and its virtues. a film about survive. and love. and friendship and brotherhood and solitude, challenges and justice. poetic, profound, superb, salted.

If ever a film deserved a DVD release, it is this small overlooked gem! Set in a small Scandanavian North Dakota farming community in the early 19th century, the film portrays the dignity of a tightly knit/culturally rich community of family farmers attempting to fight back/resist losing their farms (and indeed the community itself) to the insidious powers of unregulated banking, undercut prices/profit usurpation, and distant corporate takeovers from businesses that have no investment/interest in the survival of the rich tapestry that forms the basis of this community and the unbroken spirits of the strong-willed individuals that compose it. Within this superstructure of plot, we get a very unique glimpse into the Scandanavian language, character, customs, culture, family traditions, songs, and stories whose collective strength permitted this strong-willed/"no-nonsense" group of people to transplant their entire lives and families from the old-country to the new and eek out a way of life (indeed) survive the harsh conditions of frontier life on the Great Northern Plains of North America. As if that wasn't enough, the beautifully artistic camera work was purposefully shot in black-and-white, whose vivid contrasts of light and shadow very effectively conveys the sharp oppositions of this world and its characters as a superior means of etching its metaphors into our consciousness. People familiar with Luchino Visconti's 1948 masterpiece, "La Terra Trema" will find the themes and neorealistic approach here to be very similar and equivalent to the strength of a Visconti, Rossellini, or DeSica film. In fact, (on that note) this film very deservedly won the Camera D'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. And yet most people have never even heard of it? Why?!?!?!...this is TRULY A LANDMARK in American independent film and American cultural legacy!!! PLEASE RELEASE THIS GEM ON DVD FOR THE WORLD TO SEE!!! Thank You.