MIFF 2009 Diary Part the Fifth

RED RIDING 1980
(Dir. James Marsh, 2009)

Each chapter of this made-for-television drama about unspeakable crimes and police corruption is shot by a different dirctor on different stock, meaning that each part has a drastically different style and tone. Part One, Red Riding 1974, was shot by director Julian Jarrold (who made last year's cinematic remake of Brideshead Revisited) and was overtly cinematic and artful in its look and tone; but with Red Riding 1980, director James Marsh (Man on Wire) takes a leaner, meaner approach to the tale, and to far greater effect.

Set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper's killing spree, the plot sees Paddy Considine as Peter Hunter, a copper who has tried and failed in the past to unravel the web of corruption and graft which makes up the world of Yorkshire's police force; and who now is called back to conduct a review of their investigation into the Ripper's crimes.

Before long, Hunter and his team have turned up a suspect who seems an unlikely victim - at which point the Ripper's crimes become incidental, and the corruption witnessed firsthand in the previous chapter starts to ooze out of the shadows.

A tightly plotted and superbly directed episode, this is Britain's Channel 4 rising to the challenge of making great television set in recent years by the US cable network HBO. Performances - especially Considine's increasingly conflicted Hunter, and Sean Harris as the vile. weasel-like corrupt cop Bob Craven - are superb throughout, while the balance between historical fact and dramatic fiction is judiciously judged. Events witnessed in the previous chapter come home to roost like vultures in the hen house, but atmosphere never overpowers the rapidly developing story, which twists and turns but never throws the audience off the noxious scent of the central plot. Grim, fascinating and masterful television - though why the hell did this and other episodes have to be screened with subtitles? Bloody Americans and their inability to cope with regional English accents...

Rating: Four stars