Have you watched Top of the Lake yet? Created by (my favorite!) Jane Campion and Gerard Lee, the PBS miniseries follows Tui, a young pregnant girl who tries to kill herself in a lake and the detective (Elizabeth Moss), full of dark secrets herself, who tries to solve the case. Set in a small town in the New Zealand countyside as haunting and dark as it is beautiful, Campion does an amazing job connecting Tui's story to the pervasive sexism that undercuts women's relationships with men, both familial and strange.
One of my favorite storylines is the group of women who move into an encampment of train cars on a plot of land called "Paradise". These women, scarred and bruised by their relationships, choose to give up on convention entirely. Depite their bitter pasts, they are the most joyous characters in the whole series.
The series can get violent at times and always has a bit of a dark menacing feel but it is beautifully shot and told. Watch the whole thing on Netflix, my favorite source for British and otherwise foreign series.
What are you watching these days?
YES! I kind of wish there would be a spin-off series just called Paradise that would focus on the woman from the commune. Each episode could be one person's story. That would be awesome.
Posted by: robyn | October 01, 2013 at 05:23 PM
Kayte keep your eyes peeled for the Returned/Les Revenants, which is a creepy French horror story (more about existentialism than gore) about the deceased returning to the community they lived in. The cinematography is very much like Top of the Lake (with a little Sleep No more) with a lot of visual references to Twin Peaks and Six Feet Under. It's starting on Sundance on Halloween, so I guess it'll turn up on Netflix later this year.
Posted by: Mary | October 02, 2013 at 12:53 PM