Northern Light is an observational documentary, but its narrative rings so true that it couldn't have been a better story had it been scripted. The film's ideas shine with a full range of subtly implied, and deeply felt emotions of ordinary Americans struggling to stay attached to their personal dreams. Though their dreams are fully their own, they are equally dreams that are thoroughly and generically American; that is, they are about winning. For these Americans living in Upper Peninsula Michigan, this means competitive snowmobile races, cheer leading, and beauty/body building contests. While competitive aspirations create the impetuses that generate individual and family hope, those aspirations are continually drawn thin by the ever present economic facts of life: unemployment, low pay, doctor's bills, and bodies weakening with age and the very wear and tear of trying so hard to win.
What makes this documentary particularly poignant are the wonderfully shot moments that capture the emotions implied in the lives of the movie's tremendously real people, and the evocative editing that punctuates the primary movements of bodies and vehicles with stationary images that capture the forces of the natural and economic environments that act as ballast against which they struggle. These feelings are even more hauntingly felt through the original score that is more percussive than melodic. Just as the actors press onward toward personal and familial meaning against a current of economic hardship, so also the score expresses a struggle toward melody against a heavier, percussive dominant theme.
