Out of Frame: Red Riding Trilogy
It seems like a slur to call the Red Riding trilogy a "TV movie", but that's where it first aired, on Britain's Channel 4, a year ago. The trio look, feel, and were produced as big screen features though, and it's nice to see that IFC has picked them up for limited screenings throughout the U.S., hitting D.C. this week. These films deserve to be viewed in a theater.
Based on a quartet of novels by David Pearce, the films follow a series of possibly related serial killings in the Yorkshire region of the U.K. over the course of nine years. Each film captures a particular investigation -- in the year stated in each film's title -- with the protagonist of each story changing, but many of the supporting characters remaining the same (and, in one case, emerging from the shadows to take the lead role in the final film). While all three films were written by Tony Grisoni, three different directors were hired to film each one; the result is a series that maintains a consistent tone while allowing for stylistic variation among the directors, whose only mandate from the start seems to have been to keep the proceedings unrelentingly grim.
Starting in 1974, the first film is the most striking and risk-taking of the three, something of a surprise for those who may only know its director, Julian Jarrold, from his sedate BBC adaptations of classic literature from the likes of Waugh, Dickens, and Dostoyevsky. But here he sinks himself into a cold-sweat fever dream of a noir, following Eddie Dunford, a young, tragically hip, hopelessly naïve crime reporter for the Yorkshire Post, played with just the right blend of swagger and ineptitude by Andrew Garfield. As Dunford investigates the possible connection between the recent disappearance and eventual murder of a young girl and a number of similar cases in past years, he finds himself pulled into a web of police and business collusion and corruption, as well as an affair with the mother of one of the girls. Jarrold shoots the film on 16mm, which gives it a nice 70s texture and grain, while putting the young reporter through a frighteningly violent series of encounters with the cops.
1980 and 1983 are a little more straightforward stylistically, but no less dark and overcome with north English cold and damp. 1980 seems at first as if it is an entirely different story, focusing on an internal police investigation with a backdrop of the real-life Yorkshire Ripper murders. But as the film goes on, more and more threads from the previous film begin to pop into frame. Man on Wire director James Marsh steps behind the camera for this one, giving it the most traditional look of the three by shooting on 35mm, but allowing for some subtle and jarring stylistic flourishes in the editing suite.
In the last, David Morrissey, who played a relatively minor character in the previous two entries, comes to the fore as a police officer complicit in the rampant corruption that has defined the first two episodes, now struck with a crisis of conscience. Another young girl goes missing, and we come full circle to the series of disappearances Eddie Dunford was investigating nine years earlier. Director Anand Tucker shoots this one on digital, keeping the look somewhat filmic, while exploiting some the idiosyncrasies of the technology, especially when using harsh light sources in the otherwise gloomy settings.
Grisoni demands rapt attention throughout the series by keeping the intentions and the primary plot threads somewhat hidden. Is this a story about serial killers? About police corruption? About corporate bribery? The evil that lurks just under the surface of small town life? Or is it just a (not so) simple whodunit? The answer is a little of all of the above, but Grisoni makes the films utterly absorbing by never allowing one to really take precedence over another. By the end, you care about getting to the bottom of the mystery, but even if this had ended Michael Haneke-style without a resolution, that wouldn't have detracted from the gripping drama that comes before.
The films combine dark police procedural with a Grimm's fairy tale-worthy collection of macabre animal imagery. The first girl found murdered in the 1974 has swan wings sewn into her back. The image of the swan recurs throughout the films; not as a image of grace and beauty, but rather a symbol of menace, as that grisly sight stays with one throughout the five-hour running time of the series. Similarly, other animal names are applied subtly to characters, while one young, developmentally disabled man, who has been framed for the 1974 killings, keeps cryptically referring to "The Wolf" who is responsible for the crimes for which he has been accused.
Some characters lurk in dark corners of the narrative until they become important later on, like B.J. (Robbie Sheehan), a young hustler, and the Reverend Laws, a mysterious character who is played brilliantly with a kindly menace by the great Peter Mullan. Of course, in films this dark, everything is lurking around shady corners. Red Riding has all the ingredients, mixed in perfect measure, of a classic crime saga: dark, dense, nuanced, and completely engrossing.
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Red Riding: 1974, 1980, and 1983
Directed by Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, and Anand Tucker.
Written by Tony Grisoni.
Starring Andrew Garfield, Paddy Considine, David Morrissey, Peter Mullan, Robert Sheehan, and Sean Bean
Running time: 295 minutes (102, 93, & 100)
Not rated.
Now playing at E Street. Which films show on which days varies, so check their schedule for showtimes. For hearty souls looking to do all three back to back to back, the 7th and the 11th are the only days on which all three screen.
View the trailer.