Northern Lights is Cine Manifest’s goal of creating politically charged features made manifest, a stunning, gritty recreation of Midwestern agrarian life circa 1915, a sort of prequel to The Grapes of Wrath. Both Midwesterners themselves, directors Hanson and Nilsson root out the origins of the Nonpartisan League, a short-lived grassroots political movement that organized against corporate takeovers. North Dakotan farmers seed a cast of restrained professionals who rustically depict the wintry harshness of living with the land.