Northern Star

Her father killed himself when she was a tot; now Anke (Hummer) is 18, and the local priest has left his wife to move in with her mother. Hers is a troubled soul, and no mistake; but a growing if wary intimacy with fellow outsider Ulf (Romm) seems to offer an escape route from her mundane village and a resolution of her feelings about her old man. Randau’s atmospherically gloomy feature debut documents Anke’s adolescent tantrums without ever poisoning the viewer’s sympathy; even the adults get scrupulously fair treatment. Anke’s evolving guitar ’n’ song number is a cheap device (shades of the LFF’s ‘Blindflyers’), but the cast, Hummer in particular, is excellent.