Northfork

Leave reason at the door, switch logic onto silent mode and drift into the world of Northfolk. This peculiar fantasy from the odd-ball indie filmmakers the Polish Brothers, who make the Coens look like commercial sellouts, is as disconnected as a dream - indeed, it may all be a dream.

The "plot", if it matters, is that the town of Northfolk, Montana, is being evacuated prior to being flooded by a grand dam project in the expansive 1950s. A strange bunch of men in suits have been employed by the government to persuade the last stubborn residents to move out; they work on commission and bribe with angels' wings.

What? Yes, angels used to fly over the town and one may have stayed. A dying child, Irwin, dumped at the empty orphanage in the care of the local priest (Nick Nolte, in a very moving performance), may be the Boy Who Fell To Earth. Or he may just be hallucinating, creating an alternative ending where he teams up with a group of motley angels, one called Cup Of Tea, one with artificial arms, one a motherly hermaphrodite - you know, just the usual.

As James Woods' Walter and his son Willis try to check off the evacuations, they argue over whether to exhume their late wife/mother, whose grave will be drowned.

That's about it for the story, but the real interest is the strange light which falls over everything, the screen drenched in greys and earth tones, bleached of colour. It doesn't have the classy black-and-white of the Coen Brothers's The Man Who Wasn't There, but there is definitely a monochrome attitude.

The film very much wants to be Twin Peaks, with a twist of Wings Of Desire, but it seems too studiedly wacky to become a true cult oddity. There are some truly terrible attempts at jokes, including a baffling reference to Seventies sitcom Diff'rent Strokes, which don't so much lift the mood as mock it.

The performances are good, though, with Nolte's tender care for the dying boy surprising you into feeling something. Daryl Hannah, as yearning angel Flower Hercules, is also touching, while Anthony Edwards, as mechanically-minded angel Happy, is convincingly robotic with precise movements and twitches. Claire Forlani, as the foster mother who dumps Irwin, manages to annoy so completely in her brief scene that it's a relief when she leaves.

If you can go with this, there may be something to be discovered in Northfolk. For me, it was an interesting, but pretentious, slice of whimsy.