Top of the Lake: China Girl’s Matrilineage

A fetus is found in a sex worker’s womb, her dead body encased in a valise washed up on shore in Sydney. Crime detective Robin Griffin (Elisabeth Moss) is on the case, and meets up with her biological daughter, the product of a gang rape when she was 16. Mary (Alice Englert), now 17, has issues with her adoptive mother Julia (Nicole Kidman), and wants to marry a dubious much older type. These mother-daughter themes swirl around the two episodes of Top of the Lake: China Girl, premiering this week on SundanceTV. Jane Campion is the show’s creator, and these two “chapters,” as she calls them, indicate this director’s ease with the long form of television series, as she told me at a Thursday’s Film Society of Lincoln Center preview. That Alice Englert is her daughter adds a layer of maternity to this series.

Much has changed in the perspective of television’s importance as art, especially when it comes to series. At Cannes this year, Campion’s Top of the Lake and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks screened, the directors honored. This recognition goes far to reveal a taste for surreal images, a quality that these directors share in their mesmerizing work. Elisabeth Moss must be the queen of television series with her performances in Mad Men, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Top of the Lake. As she said, “I’ve been working for a long time. For me to have work that I am so excited about, and that people are watching is the endgame. Season 2 of Handmade’s Tale is next, and the movie The Square.”

Regina Weinreich

Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura