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redsoapbox · 8 years ago

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Hinterland /Series 3

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Hinterland, BBC Wales’ uncompromising crime drama returns to our screens this month (S4C, who initially financed the development of the programme, broadcast the latest series of its Welsh language version Y Gwyll last autumn), for a third and, if co-creator Ed Talfan’s recent comments are anything to go by, final season. Whilst Talfan was at pains not to rule out the programme returning in another format sometime in the future (a cheery Christmas special, anyone?), his view, subsequently echoed by Hinterland’s lead actor Richard Harrington (DCI Tom Mathias), suggests that the current series of this ground-breaking bi-lingual cop show is set to develop in such a way as to enable the story to come to a natural conclusion.

That opinion, rather than being an admission that Hinterland’s power to enthral is somehow on the wane is, in fact, a reference to the harrowing backstory of the tormented and traumatised Mathias having finally worked its way to a (presumably) satisfying narrative resolution - there was even a hint in the season opener that Mathias may soon be dipping his big toe into the sea of love again, for goodness sake! And, there’s the rub; Hinterland is a detective drama where the plot often takes second place (sometimes third, if you, like me, spend a fair degree of the show’s 90-minute running time ruminating on the mysterious beauty of Ceredigion), to the psychological excavation of Mathias’s battered subconscious. If Mathias is finally allowed to come to peace with his past, then the dark undercurrents that have swept him along his particular path of destruction will have disappeared along with much of the psychological tension that motivated our anti-hero.

For those coming to the show late on in its run, a quick de-brief may be in order: DCI Tom Mathias has returned home to Wales after serving for a decade with the London Metropolitan Police, unfortunately, though, it’s not to be a happy homecoming; we soon discover that Matthias is desperately trying to escape a tragedy in his recent past. Harrington, a very fine actor who had previously caught the eye as Dr. Allan Woodcourt in the rip-roaring BBC adaptation of Dickens’ Bleak House (2005), plays the broken Mathias in a pent-up manner that echoes Humphrey Bogart’s portrayal of doomed gangster Duke Mantee in The Petrified Forest (1936); all gnarled, internalised rage, a loner constantly on the verge of violent despair. By the close of series 2, Mathias is hunkered down in a static caravan at the cliff’s edge, weighing up whether or not to take his own life.

Richard Harrington and Mali Harries

On the surface, Series 3, Episode 1, (for some reason each individual episode no longer has a title), opens with a routine enough scene in which Mathias is simply seen washing his face and staring bleakly into the mirror above the washbasin. However, his morning drill is intercut with interior shots of his torched caravan (the climax to series 2). After he has finished scrubbing up, he hangs a towel over the mirror, deliberately blocking-off his reflection as if drawing a veil over his time spent in solitary confinement there and even, perhaps, over his period of mourning for his young daughter. The camera is positioned directly behind him, an approach which continues outside as he stares at the broken shell of his caravan. It’s a camera angle that re-occurs multiple times over the 90 minutes, making it clear that we are witnessing the unfolding events through the eyes of Mathias himself.

The twin-track plot of the opening episode (scripted by Debbie Moon, who also penned the excellent “Ceredigion” episode in series 2), centres around finding the arsonist who set fire to Mathias’s caravan (there is an obvious suspect carried over from the last series), and solving the murder of the local minister Elwyn Jones, who has just been found bludgeoned to death in his own home. Working through the clues to a crime, though, isn’t really what this show is all about; plots are specifically tailored to mirror Mathias’s internal struggles with grief and guilt (here, one of the leading suspects may be motivated by the death of a child to seek revenge), and have a more aesthetic function than is usual in a mainstream detective drama. Which is probably just as well, as both family members that I watched the episode with unmasked the killer very early on!

Whilst the show’s stark, rural setting helps define the show, it also severely limits the scope of the programme makers to come up with a believable crime for Mathias to investigate, a point co-creator and director Ed Thomas stressed to Wales Arts Review back in 2014 ‘The kinds of stories we can make in Hinterland is quite narrow. It’s not going to be a massive international drugs bust story or fast moving. It’s dictated by the locals and that’s blood, belonging, history, families, loss, loneliness and the landscape.’ He may as well be describing the plot layout for season 3’s opener!

With the above restrictions in mind, it’s always interesting to see how Hinterland varies its plot palette (answer: with great difficulty) and how the creative team behind the show make full use of the distinctive landscape (answer: panoramic views of lowering skies, derelict farmhouses, and woodland hideaways). The opening episode of series 3 follows a familiar pattern - there are scenes with Mathias winding his way through mountain roads (both Shetland and Vera tread a similar path), together with standard shots of the sea crashing against, and recoiling from, Aberystwyth seafront.

Hinterland, however, doesn’t have to rely on clichés to engineer its unique atmosphere; filmed largely in the area between Tregaron and Machynlleth, executive producer Ed Thomas makes full use of Ceredigion’s breathtaking scenery; lingering shots of isolated farmhouses stitched haphazardly into the stark countryside are peopled with sickly, dysfunctional men and women, hemmed in by the blackened mountains, the closing sea and their own demons. These bleak, imposing landscapes are used to frame the action, with as much of the investigation as possible taking place on the road; witnesses and suspects are often questioned in farmyards or outbuildings (in this episode a vet is interrogated while washing lambs blood out of the back of his Land Rover!), so that the spell of the show isn’t broken. This doesn’t happen by chance; Ed Thomas made a conscious decision at the series’ outset to restrict our view of modern day Wales - so don’t expect too many scenes set in sprawling shopping malls or plastic pubs. And although Aberystwyth is a coastal town, the expanse of the sea remains unexplored too; sifting through the dark depths of the human mind is, and always has been, the true business of Hinterland.

As Mathias continues his investigation into the minister’s murder, a family portrait at the scene of the crime and a half-drunk bottle of whiskey kept in a desk drawer is enough to dislodge more of the DCI’s buried memories, almost making him keel over with misery. The scene plays out with a grim-faced Mathias slumped in a chair clutching a packet of painkillers, or possibly, anti-depressants. There’s not a word spoken, but it’s exactly the kind of scene that makes Hinterland such a compelling watch. Harrington (under)plays to perfection here, resisting the temptation to ham up his character’s relapse.

For a moment it seems as though Mathias isn’t quite ready to emerge from his cocoon of despair, but the relapse is only temporary, and a scene with the landlady of his B&B (the very fact he is prepared to live in shared accommodation signifies that the healing process is fully underway and that Mathias is ready to take his place in the world again), is clearly designed to show the detective at last contemplating a life outside of the confines of Aberystwyth Police Station. Later, when consoling the bereaved Lyn Edwards, he is almost able to joke about their shared mental health crisis. When Edwards asks how he can offer his wife hope ‘when all I want to do is close my eyes and never wake up’, Matthias’s response ‘If you find the answer to that one, will you let me know’ is as honest as it is heartbreaking. Importantly, though, he is prepared to accept the possibility of an answer-a prospect he wouldn’t previously have countenanced.

As the net closes in on the murderer in the family, the second plot strand begins to take precedence. Iwan Thomas, the suspected arsonist, confronts Mathias’s boss Chief Superintendent Brian Prosser (Aneirin Hughes) with allegations of a high-level police cover-up into abuse at a local children’s home (the subject of the very first programme in season 1). The rather sketchy, unexplored figure of the seemingly untrustworthy Prosser has been one of Hinterland’s noticeable failures. Always looming in the shadows, and clearly the keeper of sinister secrets, he has remained a character in search of a back-story throughout the show’s history. His role in the denouement, here, though, was truly shocking and served as a powerful reminder that Hinterland can still pack a knockout punch when the storyline demands it.

With Hinterland drawing to a close, it’s worth reflecting on the show’s success. First off, it shouldn’t be underestimated that Wales now has its very own top-notch detective. Mathias, as emotionally zipped up as his trademark wax jacket, deserves to be ranked right up there with Morse, Tennison, Regan and Hunt in the pantheon of truly memorable British crime-busters. Whilst Harrington all but carries the show, there was fine support from his colleagues, especially Mali Harries as DI Mared Rhys. Hinterland’s co-creators Ed Thomas and Ed Talfan should obviously take a bow too; it was a truly visionary idea to make a bilingual crime-noir, and to commit to shooting the programme back to back in English and Welsh was a real labour of love for all concerned. In addition, Hinterland proved to be a commercial success too; fitting neatly into BBC4’s super-cool subtitled slot on Saturday evenings, being shown across much of mainland Europe as well as being streamed to American and Canadian audiences via Netflix.

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