Kiwi director takes on bigger lake
Stephanie Bunbury talks to Jane Campion about Top of the Lake: China Girl and her international success as a director.
‘Idon’t get treated badly any more,’’ says Jane Campion with a chuckle. ‘‘I’ve gone past the point of being just seen as a female any more; I’m a female artist and I actually get listened to – it is extraordinary, that change. I think success helps people see you differently.
‘‘When I first started as a director, I couldn’t even get the actors to do what I wanted them to do, the guys. I’d say ‘let’s rehearse now’ and they would say ‘we don’t want to rehearse’. Having female authority was a real problem at that time.’’
Thirty years on, Campion is at the Cannes Film Festival to present Top of the Lake: China Girl, the second gripping series featuring conflicted police detective Robyn Griffin, played by the American actor Elizabeth Moss. All six hour-long episodes played at the festival end-to-end, punctuated by drinks and snacks. Many reporters said it was the best thing they had seen in Cannes.
Top of the Lake: China Girl is co-directed by young Melbourne director Ariel Kleiman; Campion wrote the script with her longstanding writing partner Gerard Lee. It is set in Sydney, where the body of a young Asian woman washes up in a suitcase on Bondi Beach. The sexual exploitation of women from poor countries, whether as prostitutes or surrogate childbearers, is a running theme; the story veers between the brothels where Griffin looks for a missing woman and Sydney suburbia.
Nicole Kidman plays Julia, a distracted middle-class mother to Jane Campion’s real-life daughter Alice Englert, who is a wayward schoolgirl involved with a 42-yearold pimp.
Englert admits that it was more difficult to play this role for her mother than she acknowledged at the time.
‘‘Probably. But it was so rewarding. I love working with my mum; the first film I did was a short film she was doing that she cast me and my best friend [in] and I loved it, seeing adults focus on this work. She says she found it difficult to see me break down, that she had her own emotional reaction to that, but she did write it for me. And she left some of the more provocative stuff for Ariel to direct.’’
The first series of Top of the Lake was set in the spectacular mountains of Campion’s native New Zealand. Gerard Lee says he wanted to stay there, but Campion felt they had done what they could with that landscape.
‘‘The metaphors of paradise…’’ she says. ‘‘I was really interested in bringing the story to Sydney because I live there. I love Sydney. It is a very beautiful, interesting city. And we needed a bigger lake.’’
Elizabeth Moss says Campion told her she wouldn’t make another series without her, so wanted a commitment from her up front. She said yes.
‘‘But there were a couple of things I wanted. I said if we were going to do it, I wanted the character to be darker, more f...edup and more challenging than the first one. I was like, well, what is the point of doing it if you can’t go somewhere else? I like the fact Robyn comes crashing down and in fact is far worse than she was before.’’ She also had right of veto over any nude scene, which she says Campion offered unbidden.
Jane Campion has been a Cannes favourite since The Piano shared the Palme D’Or prize in 1993. The festival is now in its 70th year, which has been commemorated with various celebrations including a ceremony and dinner on Wednesday including many past Palme winners. As they lined up on the red carpet steps, she was the only woman.
‘‘It’s not my fault,’’ she says drily. ‘‘If I hadn’t won, no one would notice. It was worse at the 60th year, where we had a lot more Palme D’Or winners. The guys would walk out and walk out until finally someone said ‘Oh my God there are no other women!’ It is abrasive.’’
Abrasion is Campion’s specialty, however. ‘‘Jane is a provocateur, isn’t she?’’ says Gwendoline Christie, the exceptionally tall actress who plays Brienne of Tarth in Game of Thrones and here plays a constable in uniform who idolises Moss’ Detective Griffin.
‘‘Something that I think is so enduring about this work is that you come away thinking about the ideas much longer after you have left the cinema. For years I’ve thought about the ideas in The Piano. That, to me, is the signature of a great piece of work. Jane makes you question everything.’’ ❚ Top of the Lake: China Girl will premiere on BBC UKTV on SKY Television later this year.