moody

About a month ago, I noticed a couple of posters in tube stations for something called the 'Red Riding Trilogy' - a trilogy of films shown on Channel 4. The first thing which caught my attention was the impressive cast; it seemed like a game of spot-the-respected-British-actor (David Morrissey, Rebecca Hall, Sean Bean, Maxine Peak, even Michelle Dockery who was in the play I mentioned in my last post).

I never watched them on TV, but today I finally saw that they'd made their way onto 4oD so decided to watch the first one: Red Riding 1974. The dialogue was also spoken in a thick Yorkshire murmer, the cinematography was arty and abstract and often hard to make out, and the plot was moving and sufficiently impossible to understand. In other words, it was very high-brow.

The whole storyline of murder and child abductions is never going to be pleasant, but the murky colour scheme, slow pace, haunting acting and images all contributed to a wholly depressing experience. Still, I am definitely going to see the next one. Despite, or maybe because, of all the doom and gloom, I did feel that there was a lot of beauty in the first film, and I want to see the others. Plus, there is that part of me which thinks that watching all three will provide the answer to the complete mystery of what was going on in the first one (although if past experience of this sort of film is anything to go by... that's not going to happen). If any of you lovely readers are feeling a little too cheery, if you feel that the spring in your step is starting to annoy your friends, I highly recommend it.

However, once you're done with that, you'll need something to lift your spirits. For that, I'd recommend a heart-warming dose of Orangutan Diaries (on the BBC). A few friends had been raving about this programme, and then I saw a separate article about an orangutan hospital. As this Daily Mail article claims that it is the only orangutan hospital in the world, I have to assume that the TV programme and article are referring to the same thing. Either way, how cute???