Date:23/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/23/stories/2008082351110200.htm

Karnataka

Character study in a magnificent backdrop

Fire and ice: Michelle Krusiec and Michelle Yeoh

Far North (English)

Cast: Michelle Yeoh, Sean Bean and Michelle Krusiec

Director: Asif Kapadia

The icy blue sky and the snowy wastes of the Arctic Tundra are the backdrop for this savage story of love, longing and survival. Based on a short story by Sarah Maitland, “Far North” tells the story of Saiva, who is cursed by the shaman to bring unhappiness to anyone who gets close to her.

Saiva belongs to a tribe of reindeer hunters. When the rest of the tribe is slaughtered by soldiers, Saiva kills the soldiers and escapes with a little baby girl, Anja. Perennially on the run, Saiva and Anja live off the meagre game of the land.

The two women’s Spartan lives change when Saiva finds an unknown man on the brink of death. Against her better judgment, Saiva nurses the fugitive, Loki, back to life. Through the bitterly cold arctic winter, love blossoms between Anja and Loki. When Anja tells Saiva they are planning to leave her to go to Loki’s village to start life anew, she is devastated and acts to bring about a singularly horrific conclusion.

The Indian-born Asif Kapadia, who earlier made the much-awarded “The Warrior” (with Irrfan Khan), has created a dazzlingly epic tale of sleek minimalist proportions.

The movie is hauntingly exquisite as the camera refuses to look away from the terrible beauty of the landscape and what it does to the people who live on and off it.

The blues could not have been bluer, the whites more dazzling and the rocks more forbidding.

The actors are more than competent. Certified blockbuster players, Michelle Yeoh (didn’t we see her make gracefully mystical pronouncements just a few weeks ago in “Mummy 3”?) and Sean Bean shrug off their celebrity status to get into the grit and reindeer fat of their characters as Saiva and Loki.

Michelle Krusiec plays Anja with grave felicity.

The movie, a result of an arduous four-year shoot in the Arctic, should be watched for its perceptive character study of the human nature and for its magnificent backdrop.

MINI ANTHIKAD-CHHIBBER