Tuesday, January 25, 2011
IMMERSION
Today's film was the first installment of the
Red Riding Trilogy--1974 (2009)
which is ostensibly about a "ripper" serial killer but really a deep exposé of police corruption in the north of England.
Andrew Garfield (the new Spiderman and excellent in the film Dr. Parnassus, also in Network a new star bursting) is a very young, callow, crime reporter who gets in too deep. He ages rather quickly in the face of mounting pressure to stop his investigation.
Each installment, three separate years (1974, 1989 and 1983), of this story will have its own director, a strange choice or approach, and we will see how that ends up working. The director here was Julian Jarrold and bleakly beautiful. Sometimes horribly or grizzily beautiful.
There is a lot of violence here. But the action is compelling and it is over before we know what happened.
And of course that is the point as it is not done happening. There are three episodes to go.
It is not necessary, incidentally, to see all of these but if you do it would be wise to see them in succession. The first is a piece unto itself but I want more.
So far a 5 out of Netflix5.
Labels: films
