The few remaining residents of the 1950s Montana town of Northfork are damned. Or, more correctly, they are about to be dammed.

A hydro-electric scheme means their houses, roads, churches, shops and schools are about to flooded under the waters of a man-made reservoir.

Most have left but a handful of stoic residents cling to the land they call home and refuse to budge despite the incentives offered by a bureaucracy that knows best.

Faced with their lack of co-operation an Evacuation Committee of six men are brought in to persuade the remainder of townsfolk to leave... or face the consequences.

"You are not throwing out poor homesteaders," the black-clad sextet is informed. "You're saving some dumb son of a bitch from drowning."

So far, so straightforward. Then things begin to get interesting with the fevered imagination of a fevered orphan informing the flow of events.

Irwin (Farnes), who is being nursed by grizzled preacher Father Harlan (Nick Nolte), turns the objects in his room into a fantasy of earthbound angels seeking a lost soulmate.

The surreal search party includes handless Happy (Edwards), inspired by a vase on Irwin's bedside table while the origins of Flower Hercules (Hannah) lie in a comic book.

Robin Sachs is the marvellously monikered Quentin Crisp-clone Cup of Tea while Irwin's tortured sleep fashions Father Harlan's walking stick into a part mongrel prairie dog, part stiltwalker.

Visually stunning, the net result is the sort of thing you might expect if Peter Greenaway and the Coen Brothers got loaded on mescalin and looked to David Lynch for sympathy.

Wilfully off-kilter, the Polish brothers fashion stunning images such as the God-fearing patriarch building his own ark and the reluctant homesteader nailing his feet to the porch.

It's not easy to get a handle on events and the absence of humour (instead a feeble dry-as-dust irony is employed) leaves the narrative spartan and bleak.

However, it all eventually makes a certain sort of sense and for those willing to give it a chance, Northfork will have you hooked.

Tim Evans