"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.
