"Top of the Lake: China Girl" Review

The first season back in 2013 was a muddled masterpiece - great cast and atmospheric New Zealand locales. Jane Campion's Sydney-based opus is a hot mess.
Nothing rings true. The dialogue is clunky. The characters are unbelievable and unsympathetic. Yes, I get the 'misogyny takes many guises' message. I don't need to be hit over the head with it (the sniggering police recruits, the slimy geeks in the cafe, Mary's smarmy boyfriend Puss - or should that be Pus).
The situations are unreal, rather than quirky. What was the space helmet bit in Miranda's kitchen all about? If I want surreal, I can go to the sublime "Twin Peaks".
Any good stuff?
The bobbing suitcase, Clayton Jacobson's easygoing persona, Jane Campion's daughter, Nicole Kidman's frizzy grey coiff.

Episode 2 (not directed by Campion) was an improvement due to the N.Z. flashback, interesting plot twists and two standout scenes - Robin vs Julia (poor hubby Pyke) and Robin meeting Mary.
Ray, the Medical Examiner (Geoff Morrell), is stealing every scene he is in. I'm warming to Elizabeth Moss's understated performance.
Random weird stuff:

• The New Zealand police acting like 6 year olds on the suspension bridge.
• Miranda's 'open-door' therapy.

Episode 3's florid highlights:

• The overwrought restaurant scene complete with embarrassed customers, the 'c-bomb' and Alexander's chandelier rant. Terrific seeing Marg Downey ("Fast Forward", "Kath & Kim") as Julia's partner. She seems to be typecast as the new age nutbag.
• The return of David Wenham (Al Parker) - wheelchair bound Bond villain transforms into Hitchcockian psycho-killer.

Episode 4 (the nose-biting ep).
No mention of Parker's fate, just more cringeworthy developments.
Just when you thought Alexander couldn't get more detestable, he excels himself at the Father-Daughter bash; then pimps out Mary. The show defies logic. The nose biting scene got more gratuitous by being set on a nudist beach with sweeping views of Sydney's skyline.

Episode 5 (Jane Campion is back in the director's chair) - 59 minutes of my life I will never get back. More tortuous dialogue, implausible situations and a "Taxi Driver"-like denouement that you could see coming mid episode.

Episode 6 (final)
The Bondi Beach manhunt was another unbelievable scene. Why hide on the beach on a 35 degree day?  Because it was cinematic, that's why.
"Top of the Lake: China Girl" should have been a four-parter at the most. This story of loss, parenthood and surrogacy could have been more economically told. The production was ham-fisted and ponderous.

P.S. Small quibble: How could Alexander get a bag of bottled water through airport security?

"Top of the Lake" TV series Episode 6 review

Things I have learnt in this episode:

• Don't piss off a heavily pregnant teenager brandishing a rifle.
• New Zealanders will swim in any weather (e.g. hippies in moonlit icy lakes, teenagers in mountain streams).Was Campion holding a gun to the poor buggers' heads?
• Detective Al Parker (David Wenham) is as crooked as the roads around Laketop.
• Bjork made fantastic music (cover version of "Joga" sung in the Paradise funeral/concert scene)

2 questions:
How come there's snow-covered slopes in some shots and green peaks in other shots?
What about Bob Platt's kinky sex party photos?

The finale should be a doozy. The spectacular clifftop fall will take some beating. But everyone saw the old switcheroo coming, didn't they.
Hope the bikers are still in town.

Location filming:
I'm assuming Glenorchy doubled for Laketop (as it is 'at the top' of Lake Wakatipu) and Queenstown (about 40 km south) was used for the more urban areas (police HQ, coffee shop, Parker's house).

"Top of the Lake" TV series Episode 5 review no spoilers

Am I really enjoying this TV series?

But there's only a few eps to go and loads of secrets to unravel.
The acting ranges from restrained and accomplished (David Wenham and Robyn Nevin - 2 old pros) to unconvincing and hokey (witness the probably improvised scene at Robin's place with Johnno - like some Community Theatre effort).
More boffing al fresco (and boy, it must have been fresh, check out the snow covered peaks), old naked birds splashing around in an icy stream and Johnno wading through creeks semi naked after being kicking in the goolies. It is enough to make you want to watch this wintry stuff in a Snuggy.
There's some really clunky dialogue in this ep (mainly from Johnno and Robin). Is it deliberately so? And Al's marriage proposal to Robin, out of nowhere?
Many scenes just don't ring true. Why was real estate agent Platt living in a crap caravan if he had just sold Paradise for two million dollars? No commission? Robin and Johnno's forest trek just happens to lead to Paradise?  There is a pattern in the show - about 10 minutes of scenic wonder, moss strewn bonking, plot red herrings and understated dialogue then an explosion of violence.

Highlights:

• Realising Caroline Platt was played by NZ icon Lucy Lawless (Zena). Zena (Madeline Sami) is a character in "Top of the Lake". Jane Campion/Gerald Lee's little joke?
• The decor represents the personalities of the characters. The disorganised, complicated shanties of Jude and Robin.The stark, colourless, cold home and office of Al Parker.
• An instructive 'How to make a cup of tea' scene from kindly Detective Parker.

"Top of the Lake" TV series Episode 3 review

More drawn out drama from Jane Campion.  At least the episode was only 48 minutes.
Poor Robin Griffin (Elizabeth Moss), looking like Scully from "The X-Files" in some shots, has a dying mum and a stagnant relationship with her guy back in Australia. So things look up at the local pub, after a bit of impromptu oral sex in the ladies loos.
Robin must have been thinking about her fling with Johnno Mitchum because she does a crap search of Mitchum Manor (missing the drug factory on the lower level).
Holly Hunter (G. J.) is having fun with her intense prophet/nutbag role. She seems to be channelling Stan's sister Shelley from "South Park".
Old farts trippin' out in the wilderness nearly turned my stomach, concluding with drug lord papa Mitchum's self-flagellation by his mum's grave.
Hope Episode 4 gets somewhere.

"Top of the Lake" TV series Episode 1, Episode 2 review

I have watched the first two hours of "Top of the Lake". I've avoided reviews. I have seen only one Jane Campion film. I thought "The Piano" (1993) was beautifully filmed, impeccably acted, but full of unsympathetic characters and a bit of a moody wank.
"Top of the Lake" so far is .... beautifully filmed, impeccably acted, but full of unsympathetic characters and a bit of a moody wank. No wonder ABC did not want to buy it for Australian free to air.

Granted the first scene with Arthurian tones, Tui silently gliding into the lake, was mesmerising. The Queenstown lakes district of New Zealand's South Island lends itself to this atmospheric stuff. In the NZ's South Island, even a crap photographer like myself, CANNOT take a bad photo. See above, this was out the hire car windscreen. It is so picturesque (or in Kiwi speak "Pucturisque").
Elizabeth Moss ("Mad Men") does a passable Australian accent, but the production is littered with Australian accents and only a few distinctively Kiwi ones. How come? Many of the actors are Australian, David Wenham, Robyn Nevin. The wonderful Peter Mullan (scary Scottish head of the crime family in Channel 4’s "The Fear") plays a scary Scottish head of a dodgy family.

'Paradise', the women’s refuge lead by head nutbag, Holly Hunter, provide much needed comic relief.  One women lived with a chimp, another one ploughs into the local pub, plonks $NZ 100 (about $A 80) on the bar with the line: “I need a f**k, I’ll be in Room 6, 7 minute job and I’m timing it”.

There was also a throwaway line about the local Austrian paedophile, some card chimes in “Does he have a cellar?

Ever been to the South Island? It is frigging cold, even in Summer. Yet the locals gents walk around bare-chested. We have hippy crones streaking in the meadows.

I will stick with this show because I want to find out where Tui is and who got her pregnant.

Another 5 episodes to go, no more naked old birds, please.