Selective force field

Hi everyone,

I wondered how I could reproduce this scene with blender :

The main obstacle is the way the force field progresses.
When applying one on a layer, all the parts are going to react in the same time.

I would like to know how to make it progressive or really interacting with the position of the force field.

Here is a scene I made, which is failing :

http://www.pasteall.org/blend/14663

May you help ?

Thanks,

LeHibou