Customer Reviews

Northern Lights [VHS]

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've seen "Northern Lights" twice and want to share it with friends and families. I'm frustrated this Cannes winner isn't available for rent or purchase. It's a beautiful, thoughtful account of one of the most successful Populist movements in American history; when frustrated farmers slowly and reluctantly joined the Nonpartisan League, elected their own legislators and ran the state government for six stormy years.

Precede or follow watching this movie by reading a little about the Non-Partisan League of North Dakota, which will flesh out this spare, memorable film. Much of it is set in late fall and winter, which on the plains can be bleak and reinforces the North Dakota stereotype as an inhospitably cold place to live.

Part love story, part tragedy, and part history of the farmers' rebellion against perceived moneyed interests, the movie etches itself on the memory through vivid yet understated scenes: the old farmer who expires at the base of a scarecrow atop a lonely, windswept rise; the threshing of wheat done by an antique kerosene-powered tractor, belts and all, during a genuine Dakota blizzard that blew up while the crew filmed; the grain elevator manager unjustifiably downgrading the farmer's wheat, and the farmer's rage; and the many scenes of wind-blown grassland and snow. It is all deeply moving in a muted sort of way.

Two of the best parts are the beginning and end, in which real-life Henry Martinson plays the movie Henry Martinson. Martinson, in his 90s when the movie was made in 1979, was the genuine article: a North Dakota prairie radical who was involved in the NPL saga. His home is now part of the Bonanzaville Pioneer Village in West Fargo, North Dakota, and I visit it regularly. We likely wouldn't have seen eye to eye on some things, but he had spark, and what a great thing it is to have him on film!

The NPL merged with the Democratic party in North Dakota in the 1950s. Yet some of the same old grievances shown in the movie against the railroads and other institutions still crop up from time to time.

There's a story to be told of North Dakota radicalism, and this movie does it well. If it's action or hot sex you're looking for, keep looking. But if you want entertainment rather than titillation, while getting a look at the same time at the social ferment in early 20th century North Dakota, this is it. The film opens the door onto an interesting and at times moving era in our history.

Already 20 years since I saw this movie and still ready to buy it... but unavailable. A superb black&white movie showing hard times in emerging North Dakota. Scene with snow falling on mature corn is especially remarkable. Scenario describes 1920's famer's society with arrival of machinery and the Lizzie of the doctor. Intense characters and oppressive landscape (almost Russian plains).

This a a super realistic movie about life and times of farmers in North Dakota prior to WW1. It reminds me of movies like "Hester Street" and "Emigrant Saga" in the way that it so closely matches the period presented. I can remember my grandfather bouncing me on his knee singing a Swedish rhyme just like it was presented in the movie. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who has grown up in the great plains states and especially to anyone over 60 years old.

This film would make Ingmar Bergman proud, in terms of spectacular b&w photography. And the hard work involved in wheat farming in a clime such as that of North Dakota in the early days of the 20th century is made to be very tangible. And the ending in which the old geezer holds out hope that the big money guys will someday get theirs, as he reflects upon class struggles 60 years prior, reminds me too much of the history political campaigns on which I myself have worked (i.e., "someday we'll get 'em!")- great film all the way...