Dir. Asif Kapadia, UK/France, 2007, 89 mins
Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Sean Bean, Michelle Krusiec
Review by Dave Hall
This is a brooding, Arctic-set drama from director Kapadia, which like his feature debut, The Warrior, is concerned with people trapped by circumstance and landscape into extremes of behaviour. It's good looking, and effectively uses recurring visual motifs to convey meaning, but, like his snow-shoed protagonists, Kapadia is less sure footed when it comes to building drama or setting a consistent tone. Cast and crew no doubt had an uncomfortable time delivering this, so it's a shame that it's so uneven and emotionally underpowered.
At the start of the film, we are introduced to two women barely eking out an existence in this inhospitable, snow-bleached land. The exact nature of the relationship between Saiva (Yeoh) and Anja (Krusiec) isn't clear, though they appear to be mother and daughter. No one will find us here, Saiva asserts grimly as they make camp on an expanse of frozen nothingness, clearly implying that this is no bad thing. Are they on the run? If so, from whom, or what? We later discover, in flashback, who they are and what has brought them here, but not before AWOL soldier Loki (Bean) stumbles, half-frozen, into their midst and awakens destructive passions in them both.
The film works best as an adventure story, but it is clearly conceived as something more myth, perhaps, or even something more transgressive, though it never really achieves lift-off. Mundane dialogue like Don't fall for him, he'll break your heart and disappear back into the mist from where he came, are delivered flatly and ring hollow, and we are asked to believe that Anja has spent her whole life separated from civilisation she comes across more as valley girl than tundra waif. It's interesting to see Yeoh and Bean, actors usually associated with more physical roles, given the chance to show that less can be more, but in truth neither is on top form.
On the plus side, there's some effectively foreboding sound design, and Kapadia and DoP Roman Osin mostly keep visual cliché at bay, steering clear of National Geographic-calendar territory and at times conjuring up an icily surreal nether world. There are subtle visual references to later events, though Kapadia is confident enough not to draw undue attention to them. But too often the highlights are little more than asides: the main thread of the film never builds up enough head of steam to justify the extremes of its finale, which would only work as the boiling point of a much more feverish brew.
It's disappointing when a film with real ambition doesn't quite pay off, but Far North certainly ploughs its own furrow (or churns up its own snow, perhaps), even if it slews off course a few too many times.
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