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- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us November 5, 2005 In Review: North Country Challenging the fraternity without questioning the motives By Chris Honoré Tidings Reviewer “North Country” proves to be a remarkable film with a variety of truly fine actors, led by Charlize Theron, who is Hollywood glamorous, but has chosen roles that stretch and go way beyond type (as in “Monster”). In this film, she portrays Josey Aimes, a woman who wants only to be free of an abusive husband and work at a job that will allow her enough income to raise her children. A pink collar job in her hometown in northern Minnesota, where she has returned, won’t pay the bills. So she turns to Eveleth Mines, a bastion of male workers where only a handful of women have managed to get hired. The mines are also the darkside of the moon, a bleak and haunting landscape of smokestacks and blackened earth. The treatment she and the women endure at the mines goes beyond the pale, amounting to sexual harassment that crosses line after line. What Josie decides to do, against the advice of everyone, is fight back. Her struggle is heroic and grim, and the film captures the courage she displays by standing up and stepping forward. She files the first sexual harassment class-action suit in America, alleging psychological and physical abuse. But “North Country” is not a courtroom drama. Rather, it focuses on Josey’s struggles to come to terms with the misogynistic anger and resentment the men feel toward the women, for reasons that are so subjective, so seemingly irrational, that even they might be hard pressed to explain their behavior. And though she is isolated, in effect abandoned, by not only her female coworkers, but by her family and her much conflicted teenage son, she carries on. The film allows Josie to gradually develop as a strong character, becoming ever more interesting as the story evolves. As elevating and inspirational as Josie Aimes’ stand is, there is a dark and disturbing subtext to the movie. Based on a true story, “North Country” pulls back a curtain revealing an abiding animosity, bordering on hatred, by the miners toward women. And yet, as one miner points out, these same men go home to their wives and daughters, attend company picnics, take their women dancing. The question is implicitly asked whether in the subculture of men, in mines or locker rooms or on the field of play, there exists attitudes toward women that are not guided by civility or respect, but by a reflexive wish to objectify them and exclude them. Even abuse them. And such entrenched attitudes have been the reason women have had to fight so long and so hard against stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. It’s a question that the film never answers, but, at the very least, frames perfectly. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Generic Viagra Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Sportsbook Absinthe Supply Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations African Safari Hammocks Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino King of Spirits ink cartridges Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams