Red Riding: The Year of Our Lord 1983

2009 "Nine years on, another Morley child has gone missing on her way home from school."
7.1| 1h40m| en| More Info
Released: 28 February 2009 Released
Producted By: Revolution Films
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
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Synopsis

Detective Chief Superintendent Maurice Jobson is forced to remember the very similar disappearance of Clare Kemplay, who was found dead in 1974, and the subsequent imprisonment of local boy Michael Myshkin. Washed-up local solicitor John Piggott becomes convinced of Myshkin's innocence and begins to fight on his behalf, unwittingly providing a catalyst for Jobson to start to right some wrongs.

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Reviews

Neive Bellamy Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.
Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
Phillida Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU Vicious, disgusting, more than gory, just gross, and yet so true to "life" if this is life. It sure is Yorkshire, accent, desolation and misery (more than plain and simple poverty), cruelty, pollution, greed, vice, perversion, etc. spread all over. All evils in one pouch, one bag in West Yorkshire and the motto that "this is the north, where we do what we want," that's the great beauty of ugliness.It will take you three long episodes to reach the culprit and you won't be surprised at all when you finally come to him. In the meantime the police would have revealed itself the most odious, ferocious and mentally cannibalistic institution you can imagine. Asking a question for them is necessarily hurting, torturing and a few other things of the sort: breaking fingers, crushing burning cigarettes anywhere you can imagine, stripping the suspects naked, and the films do not show them naked (prudes!). There is not one single person in the police force that is able to do anything regular like find a culprit that is really guilty and bring that one to justice. One journalist is driven to craziness and some deadly justice enforcing spree, and yet you will know if he was right in his choice of targets at the end of the third film. Another young man, slightly spaced out will be convinced under duress by everyone, probably only in the police, that he killed the girl. And he will end his life in prison. With little chance to be retried since he signed a confession and pleaded guilty.And quite a few are questioned that way and yet the crimes are going on: kidnapped girls, then raped, and in many ways cut up and carved up and more or less endowed with wings and feathers. And all that in a society that is rotten to the core, that speculates on the death of as many people as possible with pollution and the exploitation of them as long as they live with projects that are as crazy as they are greedy of shopping malls with cinemas and all kinds of entertainments to empty the billfolds of the gullible submissive slaves of the public till they are empty and they can then commit suicide or die young of any kind of hazardous escaping tentative or industrial pollution. And for the girls and women prostitution and promiscuity are the main two udders of everyday suspended death. You can imagine what the other two are.And be sure that all the cadres of the police and the most respected people in this society, lay and clerical, are among the small circle of speculators and their only aim is to make money and thus to keep the surrounding society going because you cannot squeeze money out of marginal miserable derelict and impoverished proletariat. No matter what, they must have just a little bit more than their basic needs to be able to spend that little bit more in the traps of the entertaining plotters.Is it a great trilogy? I do not know but one thing is sure even if at the end the killer is finally put out of the way all the corrupted elite of this part of Yorkshire will not be in any way even questioned, not to speak of prosecuted. After all corruption is the basic human dimension: the survival instinct of the more corrupted declared the fitter, by all means, even selling their parents into slavery and feeding their own children to the industrial sharks of our certainly not post-modern society but definitely pre-modern jungle.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU
Sindre Kaspersen English producer and director Anand Tucker's television film which was written by screenwriter Toni Grisoni, is the third and final part of the Red Riding trilogy which was preceded by "Red Riding 1974" and "Red Riding 1980". It was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in 2009, at the 36th Telluride Film Festival in 2009, was shot on location in West Yorkshire and Leeds independent studios in Northern England, UK and is a UK production which was produced by producers Andrew Heaton, Anita Overland and Wendy Brazington. It tells the story about a detective named Maurice Jobson who is named head of investigation after a 10-year-old girl named Hazel Atkins disappears on her way home from school. The local newspaper speculates about a possible link between Hazel Atkins and the three other young girls who went missing in 1969, 1972 and 1974 and this complicates matters for the constabulary who is holding a young man named Michael Myshkin imprisoned. Maurice Jobson's inquiry begins with a woman named Kathryn Taylor who is a medium and at the same time, Michael Myshkin's solicitor John Piggot is instigated by his client's mother who is convinced that her son is innocent and begins his own private investigation. Distinctly and acutely directed by English filmmaker Anand Tucker, this rhythmic and riveting fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws an incisive portrayal of a detective chief superintendent and his police department's intricate search for a child murderer and a local attorney's struggle to exonerate a young man whom he thinks is wrongfully convicted. While notable for it's naturalistic and gritty milieu depictions, cinematography by cinematographer David Higgs, production design by production designer Alison Dominitz, fine editing by film editor Trevor Waite and use of sound, this character-driven, narrative-driven and brilliantly written neo-noir depicts several dense and interrelated studies of character and contains a great score by Australian composer Barrington Pheloung.This poignantly and forebodingly atmospheric, literary, darkly humorous and multifaceted psychological thriller which is set against the backdrop of a metropolitan county in the United Kingdom in 1983 during a murder investigation, is impelled and reinforced by it's fragmented narrative structure, subtle character development, various characters, interrelated stories and the prominent acting performances by British actors David Morrrissey, Daniel Mays, Mark Addy and Scottish actor and director Peter Mullan from the great ensemble cast. An unsentimental and invariably intriguing mystery from the early 21th century.
samkan Almost literally. In truth there are a few moments featuring outdoor scenes where the sun MIGHT be out amongst clouds, though camera and lighting do their best to avoid such potential charm. And therein are presented the underlying themes of evil, greed, debauchery, misery, hopelessness and...... did I mention....evil.The Red Riding Trilogy is a five hour adventure into a dark world of vile corruption, pedophilia, brutality, fear and futility. It is certainly not without merit. It features police corruption and brutality as well or better than anything I've viewed. (Example: When a mentally deficient character wets his pants upon sight of the cops we understand entirely his reaction.) The lead characters, arguably there are four, are so flawed that they function less as protagonists than as faint glimmers of humanity. Yet they are genuine to a fault. The bleak hopelessness of the British working class is well supported by the lighting, tinting (its neither color nor B&W) and drab settings. There is certainly a story in here somewhere, not so much moved by the characters as by the ugliness of human nature and it's ability to overwhelm the good.Rather than say the RRT would be better pressed into a single feature length film, the true merits of RRT would be better presented as a multi-part, episodic production more slowly introducing and intermingling the various characters. RRT is certainly more about characters and their natures, reactions and failings than anything else! As I mentioned before, only arguably have we four main characters. The story, quite artfully, ebbs and flows re the importance of and emphasis on certain people. A seemingly minor character is a plot devise at one point, only to be more fully drawn much later. An eight or ten part RRT, at an hour a shot, would/could provide something as engaging as ; e.g., a BBC Dicken's production. Imagine a modern day Bleak House adding drugs, sex, gruesome violence and overwhelming fear.The major problem with RRT is that what we ultimately learn to be the great evil has by then become so obscured by characters and emotions that it almost gives new definition to anticlimax. There may -or quite possibly may not - have been sufficient clues, dialog, etc. attending to the "story" to have made its outcome satisfying. Assuming there were enough such tips (this is arguable!) by the end of RRT the viewer is far too exhausted to piece the story together. In a nutshell, the backbone story/plot takes such a distant backseat to the grittiness, characters and tragedies that it will be long forgotten before RRT's fears and tears are still remembered.
lost-in-limbo Here we have the final chapter of the this turbulently dark and maturely free-flowing three part mini-series, picking up three years after the second chapter, the story for 1983 might be a little convoluted (with the plot digging further into past events --- where some passages are set-up flashbacks leading us to even more surprises) it still was a fulfilling, harrowing and exciting way to close it off. It might not reach the heights of the first two chapters, as it came down a notch but for me it didn't disappoint and remained just as acceptably engaging as the previous entries.1983 sets the story that another young girl has vanished from the same area, where nine years earlier (set-up in the first chapter; 1974) a young girl's mutilated dead body was found with angel wings. Detective Maurice Jobson was originally on the case with an autistic man Michael Mishkin being accused of the murder/s, but now of this new development the family of the accused seeks the help from dreary lawyer John Piggott to get an appeal. At first hesitant, but Piggott learns some astonishing facts from Michael about police brutality and corruption at the core. There he goes on trying to take on the Yorkshire police on his own. While Detective Jobson seems to be having a change of heart and starts digging in to the case wanting to do the correct thing, which some of his fellow officers begin questioning.1983 pretty much follows on from 1974, as while 1980 seemed there more so there to connect/hold together some issues that worked its way in. The sprawling plot brings together all the pieces (child abuse, serial murders and police corruption) to put them as one; as every little detail, lead and revelation about this deeply crafted and intelligent crime story comes to a conclusion. Recurring characters seem to find themselves being wrapped up too and it actually centres more on the endlessly brutal actions of the police behind closed doors. The story was never about the bigger picture of police corruption and violence, but just a small note of it with how this case (and also Yorkshire ripper) was manipulated for self-gain and power… the series focused on that aspect. Here the narrative for the last chapter is about someone trying to make a difference, no matter how much they're out of their league or badly tainted. This can be seen from the viewpoint of two central characters ; lawyer John Piggott and Detective Maurice Jobson. Both have regrets and troubled minds, but see this crusade to not turn a blind eye and at least add a touch of hope amongst such bleak, unflinching and fearful circumstances. David Morrisey had lesser roles in the early films, but this one its all about his character's transformation in what is a superbly reflective performance as Jobson. Mark Addy is also outstanding as lawyer Piggott. Then there's a third character; BJ (Robert Sheehan) who ties all the incidents together from all three chapters. The support is up to game with brilliant show-ins by Warren Clarke, Jim Carter, Daniel Mays and Peter Mullan.Director Anand Tucker just like the other additions captures the times through place and time, embarking with a visually crisp look but never forgetting the glassy and hardened edge that made this series an uneasy and challenging viewing. What always left a mark with me throughout the series, were the music scores and this chapter was no exception. Gloomy, but soulful and emotionally tailored. An unforgettable and stimulating TV crime drama.