Movies in 2011 #3: Red Riding (1977)

An article by Colin Colvert in the Strib on the topic of good movies from 2010 that one might have overlooked reminded me that I had meant to see the "Red Riding" British film trilogy in the theaters, but I had missed it. This trio of films was made for British television, with screenplays by Tony Grisoni, based on the novels by novelist David Peace, who grew up in the area and wrote about how the Yorkshire Ripper haunted his childhood imaginary.
Thanks to Netflix streaming, we watched the first film: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974. It's grim fare about corruption in Yorkshire society from 1974-1983, the period when the infamous Yorkshire Ripper attacked dozens of women, killing many of them although some survived. Although the murders in the first film are fictional, the real events are intertwined with them. As much as a story, like so much crime fiction, what's at stake is getting to the feel of the place and time, the grim social and political conflicts, the paranoia, the helplessness, the moral choices made by people on the edge. When one of the characters says "every city has its death squads," the protagonist scoffs. But this was precisely the time when death squads were at work all over the world.

The IFC has a page on the films that gives details about the project:

"The three films are directed by three notable filmmakers--Julian Jarrold (BRIDESHEAD REVISITED), Academy-Award(R)-winner James Marsh (MAN ON WIRE) and Anand Tucker (SHOPGIRL). Each boasts a stellar British cast that includes Andrew Garfield (THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS), Sean Bean (LORD OF THE RINGS), Paddy Considine (DEAD MAN'S SHOES), Rebecca Hall (VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA), and Peter Mullan (TRAINSPOTTING)."

As David Fincher did in Zodiac (another film about a journalist feverishly hunting a serial killer that is a portrait of a time and place) the director and designers have recreated the period in vivid detail: the clothes, the smoke-filled pubs, the tacky wallpaper, the grim urban settings and desolate rural landscapes always under a cloud that is just about to rain, the quality of the images made with the 16mm film stock of the time.

The actor Andrew Garfield speaks with the same almost unintelligible Yorkshire accent as the rest of the cast. He is now on to glossier stardom after his turn in The Social Network and the upcoming Spiderman reboot.