Her concerns now are more mature, at least on the surface: “What about the roots, Lou? They spread in under the house. Trees bother Kay-in the film’s opening voice-over, she explains how when she was a child she used to fear the roots would crawl up under the house, under her bed. Louis is distressing Kay by planting an “anniversary tree” in their back patio. He lets the rest of the coins drop to the concrete-brilliant-and before we know it the two are descending together, out of the frame and onto the floor.īefore the ten-minute mark we’ve hopped ahead 13 months. Victorious, Kay crosses to Louis and goes in for the kiss. Standing by the portentously numbered thirteenth parking space, they decide to toss a coin-“for keeps.” Louis takes out a handful of coins and begins flipping them: Tails. “Look, I wouldn’t bother you, but I think it’s true. “It’s just, well I’m destined to be with you,” she tells him during a parking-garage assignation. Kay wastes little time explaining the situation to him. There’s a question mark on his face, dear.” Soon afterward we meet Louis (Tom Lycos), who’s been engaged to his sweetheart, a woman Kay works with, for “what? fifty-five minutes.” A twist of hair hangs just so above a mole on his forehead. “He is going to be important.” Turning Kay’s cup this way and that, she goes on: “What’s that? A question mark?” A minute later, frowning: “Oh yes, it’s on his face. In one of the first scenes, Kay visits a tealeaf reader. It’s about Kay (Karen Colston), Sweetie’s sister, a quietly bold and superstitious woman whom we get to know well before Sweetie herself makes her first appearance, 26 minutes into the film. Sweetie isn’t about Sweetie (Genevieve Lemon)-at least not centrally. Nor had I seen In the Cut (2003), Campion’s adaptation of Susannah Moore’s novel about an English professor caught up in a murder case nor An Angel at My Table (1990), her long and winning portrait of the life of celebrated New Zealand writer Janet Frame, based on Frame’s autobiography nor Sweetie (1989), Campion’s bizarrely hilarious and beautiful debut.įirst things first. I had already seen The Piano (1993), Campion’s best-known film, but not Bright Star (2009), her take on the ill-fated romance between John Keats and Fanny Brawne. Always a sucker for killer establishing shots (see Days of Heaven or No Country for Old Men), within minutes I was hooked.Īnd chancing upon a director’s latest work is the only excuse I need to go and watch her first, making (selective) pit stops throughout her career along the way. One night I sat down on my couch and began streaming the first episode. Game of Thrones! Who had time for a detective mini-series set in small-town New Zealand? My students hadn’t even heard of it.īut at some point I found out that 2013’s Top of the Lake was created and directed by Jane Campion. And by handily borrowing someone else’s HBO GO password, I had recently opened up a veritable Pandora’s Box Office: True Detective, Six Feet Under, Game of Thrones. But Netflix’s archives are so deep-I was still catching up on my Parks and Rec, my Louie, my Portlandia. So why had I put off watching the show in the first place? Multiple trustworthy parties had recommended it to me. Sometimes, when your girlfriend is out of town and you’ve just started watching an awesome TV show, you’ll try to force it on just about anybody you can. Sometimes, when you’re a teacher, you’ll say just about anything to break the silence your students seem bent on preserving. “Has anyone here watched Top of the Lake?” This is the third in a short series of posts on directors’ first films-films often overshadowed by the blockbusters that come after them but that catch their makers at an important stage of evolution while providing plenty delights of their own.
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