Agenda Movie Club: Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974

Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974

Julian Jarrold

2009

This is part of a trilogy, so really I should probably wait until I’ve seen all three movies before commenting. But you guys have been good boys and girls, so let’s go!

Amy had the appropriate reaction to this movie, which was to be disturbed enough that it kept her up at night. These are dark, dark places. For those who aren’t aware, the trilogy is loosely based around the Yorkshire Ripper murders in England in the 1970s.

Except only sort of. It turns out, at least in this first one, that it’s far more about the rot that has eaten out the core of the police department and society on a larger scale. It exposes a complex system of corruption in the legal system, through the press, and throughout social and business leaders. At times, I really felt like I was watching “The Wire” again. The tentacles run that deep.

The tone is stark and visually striking. A person who didn’t know could be forgiven for thinking that the movie was actually made in the mid-’70s, not just that it takes place then. There’s one shot that has a person walking off in the distance on a hill behind the house we’re supposed to be looking at. It made me exclaim something loudly (I don’t remember what I said– it doesn’t matter). Then, I was talking to St. Teddy about the movie, and he mentioned the same shot. So I know it was as impressive as I thought it was at the time.

Andrew Garfield is excellent. The kid can act. A completely different character from the one he played in The Social Network. Also, more muscles.

Like I said, this is dark. It’s scummy. It’s dirty. These are not pleasant places we’re asked to go in watching this movie. When Sean Bean shrugs off his (probable) role in the sexual murders of little girls as his “weakness” (I don’t actually remember if that’s the word he used, but it was something dismissive like that), we’re not in a place people should be.

And there’s still two more of these to go.



Update: I notice that I use some of the same words here that I used when talking about Gomorrah. “Rot.” Let’s go ahead and say that the rot does not run as deeply here as it does there. At least not yet…