Film Noir Fairy Tales

The next three weeks are going to be wonderful for several reasons. Snowboarding is getting good, I love crappy Christmas music, and there are birthdays and parties and all sorts of festive things to do. Yet another good thing? Gabe finally got the Red Riding Trilogy from the Portland library and we have three weeks to watch it. The trilogy was originally broadcast on U.K. television, and as I understand it, is an examination of the corruption of social foundations in Yorkshire. Each film has a different director and the trilogy spans from 1974 to 1980 to 1983. Moral corruption! Film noir! Yorkshire!

Here's a synopsis of the first one from Slant Magazine:

Julian Jarrold's Red Riding: 1974 kickstarts the proceedings by focusing on Eddie Dunford (Andrew Garfield), a rookie journalist who, like the protagonists of the subsequent 1980 and 1983, is returning to Yorkshire after time away. Back on native soil mere days after the death of his father, Eddie sees careerist opportunity in the abduction case of 10-year-old Clare Kemplay, a figurative Red Riding Hood (replete with crimson hoodie) whose disappearance he soon surmises may be linked to two similar missing kids in the region. Driven by a strain of young-turk ambition that, as suggested by the environment's cigarette smoke-decorated nastiness, can only lead to ruin, Eddie makes the cardinal sin of all noir chumps, believing himself to be more (or at least different) than he truly is. It's a mistake that plays out not only through his investigation into Clare, whose body is suspiciously discovered in a construction site owned by local development magnate John Dawson (Sean Bean) with swan wings stitched to her back, but his eventual amorous relationship with Paula Garland (Rebecca Hall), the mother of one of the other missing girls. 

Here's the trailer:



We're watching 1974 tonight!