In my third binge viewing event of this summer, I just finished watching the seven-episode mini-series Top of the Lake on Sundance channel. Again, I couldn't stop watching, watching all of the series within fifteen hours. Sometimes we all need food and sleep. Like Orange is the New Black, viewing Top is like reading a great page-turner.
I have loved Elisabeth Moss on Mad Men from the start of the series, and I love her even more in this role as Detective Robin Griffin. She's smart, serious, and tough in this role. I'd like to see her win the Emmy she deserves.
The tension and suspense were also great, but what really struck me is the haunting beauty of New Zealand, the setting for the film, with the use of striking music. The landscape and evocative music was reminiscent of Peter Weir's Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975), set in Australia. A movie that haunted me equally when I first saw it years ago.
Top of the Lake and Picnic at Hanging Rock share some of the same subject matter and themes. Both deal with communities that have seem serene and peaceful externally but that are filled with black secrets and a darkness of humanity that eats its own young. Nature and landscape serve as a space of retreat, freedom, self-exile, but also danger.
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