Far North

There are few fears greater perhaps than the fear of being lonely. That you have chosen to remain so, for what turns out to be nothing at all, must rank a close second.

Far North brings together these two fears in the person of one woman, who has all her life found herself set against both men and the vast, bleak landscape she inhabits. She has almost found peace when in comes a man suggesting there can be more to life than this, provoking in his wake the simplest of feelings with the most complicated of consequences.

Asif Kapadia8217;s second feature after the Irrfan Khan-starrer The Warrior pits this dark tale against the pristine purity of the Tundras. However, stretches as it does into the horizon, the soft ice hides the brutality of a hard life led battling nature and cruel invaders.

Saiva is among the last of her kind. Branded 8220;cursed8221; when she was born, she has lived her life without love, was raped and saw her family being massacred when she grew a little older and now doesn8217;t trust anyone. As she fled deeper and deeper into uninhabited areas, away from the progressing invaders, all she has had for company for 20-odd years is a child she saved.

This child is now the pretty girl Anja Krusiec, who loves Saiva but doesn8217;t really understand the source of her fears. One day a stranger washes up half-dead at their doorstep. Saiva saves him, against her better instincts, and brings him to their hut. He introduces himself as Loki Bean, a runaway soldier.

In the flickering light of that solitary hut in the vast ice land, against embers keeping the Arctic cold away, new passions suddenly spring up. Saiva remembers her lost love, Anja discovers what is to be a woman, while Loki 8212; perhaps for the first time in his life 8212; finds himself at the centre of unexpected attraction. He harmlessly flirts with both. By the time he makes up his mind, the roll of the dice has already taken the game too far.

While Bean and Krusiec are proficient, Yeoh is simply brilliant. A great beauty, she has at the same time this immense capability of conveying a cruel coldness that Kapadia works to great effect here.

Whether knitting, with her back to the lovers or standing looking at the hut she suddenly finds herself an outsider in, Yeoh is the embodiment of our worst fears: those that can8217;t be voiced, and those that won8217;t stop at anything.