Criticism of ‘Red light’: the patriarchy is the murderer

The actresses Carice van Houten (Melisandre in ‘Game of Thrones’) and Halina Reijn They started the production company Man Up to not only interpret, but also tell dark and risky stories with a feminine point of view. From the project came the film ‘Instinct’, directed by Reijn herself and with Van Houten in the role of a psychologist who becomes obsessed with a sexual offender whom she is treating in prison. First test passed: ‘Instinct’ was chosen to represent the Netherlands at the 2020 Oscars.

The film did not go beyond shortlisted, but the series ‘Red light’, Man Up’s next project, won a couple of awards at Canneseries 2020: the Special Interpretation Award to the entire cast and the Student Award for best series . This interesting dramatic ‘thriller’ with a landscape of prostitution and human trafficking, far-reaching reflection on gender roles and patriarchy, can now be seen on SundanceTV.

Again with the novelist Esther Gerritsen As a collaborator on the script, Van Houten and Reijn cultivate an intricate criminal and emotional tangle about three women from disparate backgrounds whose lives intersect after the disappearance of a man. Sylvie (Van Houten) is a prostitute and manager in a brothel that she shares with her toxic pimp and boyfriend Ingmar (Geert Van Rampelberg) in the Red Light District of Antwerp. Esther (Reijn) is a rich soprano married to a philosophy professor evaporated from the face of the earth. Evi (Maaike Neuville, seen in ‘The Jury’, another series directed by Wouter Bouvijn) is the police investigating her disappearance, as well as the murder of a young prostitute linked to Sylvie’s club. Little by little, these three characters with no apparent bond will understand that they need each other to get out of suffocating situations.

Questions with no easy answer

Although at first it is difficult to see the resonances between their circumstances, from the second chapter it begins to be seen the common pattern: Sylvie, Esther and Evi suffer in one way or another the yoke of patriarchy; at least two of them are deceived by two toxic men; all three desperately grapple with the expectations that a macho society has placed on them. On their way to research women, the creators explore uncomfortable feelings about motherhood: Evi regrets having been a mother and dreams of leaving everything, as only men seem to have the right to do in stories or in life; Esther seems to be looking for her because she is supposed to; Sylvie has become pregnant and doubts whether or not to go ahead with it.

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‘Red light’ does not offer, at least in principle, simple answers to the questions it raises. In times of black and white, it reminds us that two seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time. Is Sylvia an accomplice or another victim of (this yes, nefarious no more) Ingmar? Both: she is a somewhat calculating woman, who knows how to modulate her morality as it suits her, but also who always takes the worst part in that codependent relationship. The tough questions extend into the realm of sex work: are we talking about a transaction between adults or just the most cruel and harmful act of submission? Those who still dare to define television as simple passive entertainment should, perhaps, take a look at this esteemed series, only weighed down by a somewhat indifferent direction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgvjxjRtBZI