American actress Elizabeth Moss (pictured) is earning rave
reviews from critics for her role as a troubled detective
in Top of the Lake, the six-hour television drama series,
shot on location in Wakatipu last winter. Photo from UKTV.
The international buzz surrounding the Wakatipu-shot
thriller
Top of the Lake continues to grow with
creator-director Jane Campion telling The Times of London the
miniseries is part of a revolution in television.
In a piece headlined ''Why Jane Campion's Top of the Lake
will be must-see TV'', journalist Kate Muir tells readers
that the six-part series starring Elizabeth Moss and Holly
Hunter has ''a touch of Twin Peaks, a landscape from
The Lord of the Rings and a heroine from Mad
Men''.
Campion said in the article she was inspired by such
long-form TV dramas as Deadwood and The Killing.
''I was at home watching Deadwood and I suddenly stood up and
said: `Who is commissioning this stuff?' ''This is a
revolution. Something is really happening in television . . .
''It's harder and harder to make the film you want. Feature
film-making is now quite conservative.''
Ms Muir said Campion's first episode ''delivers puzzles and
red herrings in equal measure, and immerses us in a small
lakeside town in her native New Zealand. There's an eerie
feel to this closed-in world, its Maori and frontier past
eliding with the present, in a magnificent mountain landscape
that hides all manner of squalid sins.''
Top of the Lake had its European premiere at the
Berlin International Film Festival earlier in February after
its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival.
The series debuts on Sky on UKTV on March 25 and is shown on
BBC Two in the northern hemisphere summer.
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