Jane Campion's _Top of the Lake_ is like a female-centric
version of _True Detectives_, and the New Zealand gothic is
hardly any better than the Louisiana freak show. Elisabeth
Moss plays the lead character, a big-city detective returning
to her home and get temporarily assigned to solve a missing
girl case. I've always liked Moss, not for _Mad Men_ which
puts me to sleep, but for _The West Wing_ where she plays
Martin Sheen's precocious youngest daughter. Here, I think
the screenplay lets her down. She is little more than
a depository of slowly revealed hidden secrets like
everyone else. Her initial fresh-faced, good-natured turn
has become a little too familiar, and her transformation
into a drunk and then an avenger seems so routine. I hope
I see her in better roles soon (a new one called _Queen
of something_ seems promising).

Peter Mullan is OK as the antagonist, but we have really
seem too many of these self-styled charismatic, power-hungry
types already. The rest of the cast is mostly forgettable,
except for the Asian girl playing "Tui." Holly Hunter
shows up in a small handful of scenes, sporting long white
hair that reminds one of Jane Campion herself, spouting
brief and rude remarks to the women supposedly under
her charge. The film would hardly have missed her were
her completely absent, which is an indictment of the
screenplay not making good use of the cast.

Which brings us back to Jane Campion, director and cowriter.
I have never been in the least impressed with any of her
work. When _The Piano_ took top prize at Cannes I was
excited to see it -- only to disappointed right from the
opening frame (a boat breaks water, shot from below). A
shots stolen from _Days of Heaven_, where it is Richard
Gere's lifeless body. That shot is rendered offhand,
casually profound in a film featuring a galaxy of stellar,
images, while Campion's version has this "look at me"
pomposity, since it has little else to offer. I'd be
hard pressed to think of one film, one scene, one image
from Campion that stuns and excites me.

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Every time I criticize one of these established, acclaimed
directors I tend to punish myself by watching another of
his/her film I haven't tried. Maybe I should go with _Bright
Star_, which I've avoided because of my aversion to Keats.
(Why can't people make a film about Tennyson instead, or
Dickenson, or A.E. Housman? Wait, Tom Stoppard wrote a
play about Housman, _The Invention of Love_, and it is
probably his single greatest play, surpassing even _Arcadia_
in my view. If only someone would film that.)

But thinking about _Top of the Lake_ again my mind turned
to the "Above Suspicion" series. That is a set of stories
which do justice to a female cop trying to make her way in
a world dominated by men. Unlike Helen Mirren in _Prime
Suspect_, Kelly Reilly's protagonist is not above using
her attractiveness to her advantage. Critics don't like
"Above Suspicion" and the U.S. critics in particular really
don't like Reilly (who must not have played nice with them).
But both are so superior to "Top of the Lake" and Elisabeth
Moss (I wish I don't have to say that, I do like Moss).

The men in "Top of the Lake" are given the ghetto treatment
awarded to African Americans in _True Detective_ season 1.
There is one semi-decent guy, and a kid who is gay (so he
must be OK), and the Mauri guy is nice too, but literally
every other man is a rapist, child-molester, or enabler
of both. (Some are women-beaters too, but that hardly
seen to factor given the other stuff they do.) It really
gets to be too much.

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And good gracious, _Bright Star_ is infinitely worse
than even _Top of the Lake_. That means into my black list
you go, Jane Campion.

There are a couple scenes near the beginning and end
(with choral music) that are somewhat interesting. The
character of Keats, played by Ben Whishaw as an awkward,
love-sick, near-autistic savant, is at least novel and
intriguing. But Fanny Brawne is the protagonist and she
is the worst kind of cinematic cliché -- a glum, lifeless
artist's muse as a non-person who swoons at any word
the artist mouth at her. Her trajectory consists of
wearing fancy clothes to wearing old-maid's garbs.
Abbie Cornish is a really interesting, intuitive actress
most of the time. She shot to fame in _Somersault_ and
even in the much derided recent film _The Girl_, where
she plays a working class Texas woman who tries to smuggle
in Mexicans and causes a tragedy, she is wonderfully
expressive and suffused with empathy. Here she is made
of wood, thanks to Campion's "direction," no doubt.

To make things worse, Campion decontextualizes the
couple's relationship from everything else going on.
There are third hand mention of "gossip" about the
couple but this is told, not shown. (Compare with
the fleeting scene of people starring at, presumably
talking about "Abbie" in _Days of Heaven_ -- done
with such delicate economy.) Decontextualizing
isn't necessarily bad -- see Ullmann's _Miss Julie_.
But it wouldn't work if the protagonist is a non-entity.

Many critics seem to like this film and dislike
_To the Wonder_. Why? Malick's film is so amazingly
romantic, he should have been the one directing _Bright
Star_. Even Olga Kurylenko, much maligned by critics,
portrayed a very complex woman of many moods. To think
that Cornish actually won awards for _Bright Star_ --
a wonder indeed.

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