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North Country October 23, 2005 |
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In 2003, Charlize Theron won an Oscar for playing a beat up woman so tired of her unusually cruel life she turns to murdering men as a form of revenge in “Monster”. That same year, director Niki Caro directed young Keisha Castle Hughes to an Oscar nod as a girl who fights for her right to be treated equally amongst her male-dominated Maori tribe, led by her set-in-his-ways grandfather, in the stellar New Zealand film “Whale Rider”. Now in 2005, the two, Theron as star, Caro as helmer, have teamed up for “North Country”, a remarkably familiar, yet unquestionably powerful, feminist struggle drama about a woman fighting for her rights to be treated equal in the iron mines of Minnesota, where daily she and her few fellow female co-workers are scorned and verbally harassed by ignorant, threatened male miners. If we do the math, factoring in Theron’s high regard within the Academy, her unglamorous, weepy performance, Caro’s newly acquired stance as a leading feminist director, and such classic Oscar-winning films like “Norma Rae”, and more specifically, Barbara Kopple’s legendary coal miners strike documentary, “Harlen County, USA”, to which “North Country” bares many thanks and resemblances, then we could be hearing Theron’s name again at this year’s awards telecast. The Academy certainly likes it when a stone beauty gets all dirty for her craft, and I’m not sure there is more of an important cause post 1950, besides black civil rights, than the right for women workers not to feel harassed and unprotected in the workplace, be it an office on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, or 20 feet below ground in a Minnesota coal pit, but unlike in “Monster”, where the S. African was hardly recognizable behind some makeup and added poundage, Theron’s character, and performance, are recognizable, too much so to feel new and original enough to warrant another Oscar. The movie is good, and the story is important, but let’s not get carried away with ourselves, because no matter how many different ways you look at it, this is simply a story of rabid injustice and the uphill court room battle to rectify it, and I’ve seen enough court room films to know where this one is going. Based on a true story, but fictionalized for the screen, and juiced tenfold with rebellious Bob Dylan anthems, “North Country” stars Theron as Josey Aimes, who we meet at the beginning of the film with a nasty black eye, running home with her two children from an abusive relationship. At home, she runs into her old friend Glory (Frances McDormand, familiar with Minnesota accents), who tells her to apply at the town iron mill, they’re hiring mandatory female workers, she says, and the pay is six times higher than the pay she’s getting for cutting hair at the local salon. The advice is sound, so Josey applies, much to the dismay of her hard-working teamster father (Richard Jenkins), and the smarmy supervisor whose job it is to make the women feel as unwanted as they are. “You’re taking jobs where there aren’t jobs to take,” the supervisor says to her after her first complaint of harassment, “those boys aren’t your friends, I’m not your friend, I suggest you shut up and take it like a man.” Harsh, but that’s not the worst of it, in one scene she’s nearly raped by a co-worker and later chastised in public by the man’s wife for, as she heard it, hitting on her husband, a vicious lie perpetrated by her attacker that sets in motion a string of events leading to her suing the company, if only other women will ante up and join in on the class action suit, destined to be a landmark, and a difficult struggle towards justice. “The illusion is that all your problems will be solved in court,” says Woody Harrelson as her lawyer, “but the reality is, even when you win, you don’t win.” That may be some kind of lawyer doublespeak, but from the many courtroom dramas I’ve seen in my time, when you win, it’s a happy ending indeed. “North Country” is a skillfully crafted film that looks as cold and barren as the Minnesota winter it takes place in, thanks in no small part to Chris Menges’ cinematography, and the brutality of the story, involving everything from a past, secret rape, to inhumane harassment with human excrement, makes this one of the bleakest films of the year. In stark contrast, Caro’s “Whale Rider” was a gorgeous and uplifting film that utilized the picturesque landscape of New Zealand almost as symbolically as “North Country” uses the soul-crushing ugliness of a snow covered mine pit on a gray winter afternoon to further enhance the sense of dread Josey and her co-workers go through each day. The darkness goes hand in hand with the injustices of the story, and if it feels at all self righteous (the references to Anita Hill are obvious, and unnecessary), or self important, it’s because all films about David vs. Goliath inequalities are allowed, in the end, some breathing room to gloat, and shame the audience into liking their hero that much more for enduring the raw deal that is their story. I’ve seen it before, and I’m sure I’ll see it again, but “North Country” is professional, well acted (some would say Oscar bait), and just compelling enough to occupy a place in the annuls of blue collar working class cinema, in the realm of the feminist theory, and the gritty, dark, fictionalized stomping grounds of melodramatic realism. It may inspire a tear, it may inspire a sigh, and it may inspire a revisit to Bob Dylan’s “Highway 61 Revisited”, but if that’s all it inspires, than “North Country” has failed, because what it sets out to do is inspire passionate cries of historical wrongdoing made right by the will of a warrior, a female warrior, in thick black goggles, denim coveralls, and a dirty yellow hardhat. “North Country” is playing at the Movie-Plex 59. by Adam Suraf
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