The Heart of a Demon ...

... lives at the bottom of a mysterious mountain lake. In any case, this is the story told in Jane Campion's Top of the Lake mini-series from New Zealand. With a breathtaking backdrop, it involves a young girl who has disappeared, and the search for her becomes an emotional rollercoaster through human depths and interpersonal aberrations. This film has everything that one could hope for in following Neptune's change into Pisces. It obviously takes a little while until the new energetic backgrounds have asserted themselves, even in the creative minds; one to two years quickly pass from the first idea to the premiere.

But increasingly more new films and series are appearing that no longer have anything in common with the old Neptunian world of illusions from the Aquarius era. Series such as CSI – which live from fast cuts, cold aesthetics, and cool music – are becoming extinct and just relicts from the past. Instead, we have shows like Homeland, Game of Thrones, and precisely this Top of the Lake that are somehow different, tell entirely different stories, and place a new type of person in the foreground. No lacquered heroes; instead, all of them are broken seekers. The boundaries between good and evil are flowing or dissolved. No one remains unscathed and flawless.

This also includes a good portion of Pluto-Uranus, but Neptune in its ruler sign still manages to place the magic of illusion like a mantel over the new stories. This is exactly why it is also interesting to allow such films with an astrological background to have their effect and follow the personal background of the main characters in their roles. Top of the Lake is also such an experiment. Loop goes to Hollywood and even beyond.

The director - Jane Campion

One of the characteristics of Jane Campion is probably that she produces quality instead of quantity. Which is completely in keeping with her Sun-Saturn opposition in the natal chart. But whatever comes after that always has rhyme and reason, even if the topics are often similar. As in Top of the Lake, the focus is almost always on the extraordinary destinies of extraordinary women. In An Angel at My Table, she tells the story of the New Zealand writer Janet Frame, the The Piano is about suffering and the late happiness of Ada MacGrath, and she describes the love relationship between the lyric poet John Keats and Fanny Browne who is five years younger than him in Bright Star. The way in which she links her stories with strongly expressive images and sensitive dialogue appears to confirm the implied Pisces Moon in her natal chart. But also Jupiter at 25° Gemini, in opposition to the Galactic Center, has a special talent for extraordinary stories that never find it necessary to swim with the mainstream and are still entertaining and moving.

Top of the Lake is no exception here, even if there are a number of main figures who benefit from the director's care and attention.

Robin Griffin - Elisabeth Moss

Up to now, Elisabeth Moss has only attracted our attention in various US series through her supporting roles. She is one of the main figures here, a young police officer who returns to the city of her birth. She is actually there to spend time with her mother who has cancer, but the search for the vanished Tui becomes an increasing obsession.

Because she had an experience similar to that of the pregnant girl, in the same place and at a similar age. This involves rape, abuse, and survival in a man's world that is so bleak and one-dimensional that even just looking at it spreads a sense of desperation. But with the Mars-Pluto conjunction at the end of Libra, Moss' Leo-Sun also has good dispositions in private life in order to seem credible in such surroundings.

Matt Mitchum - Peter Mullan

The embodiment of the absolute bad guy is played by Peter Mullan. His Matt is a flipped-out hippie patriarch who knows no boundaries. Jane Campion has found her nemesis in him; his Scorpio-Sun stands on her Saturn, perfectly suited to the role that has been intended for him – also from the director's perspective.

But not even this character is ever depicted in a one-dimensional way: There are moments in which he appears sympathetically human, lost, and broken. Only in the next moment to once again destroy any hope of the good in him as he cholerically and violently dominates everything that does not fit into his cosmos. The interaction with Griffin is also naturally a given when he opens his mouth (Mercury 27° Libra), her Mars-Pluto (24° Libra) /goes off.

GJ – Holly Hunter

In addition to the alcohol, drugs, sex, secrets, and lies, the spiritual side must also not be shortchanged in Neptune. And this is also served abundantly and appropriately in Top of the Lake. Holly Hunter plays "GJ," a strange being from another star, somehow illuminated but then again as profane as an ex-junkie. Weird therapy sessions take place at their women's camp in paradise, but an important Pisces credo is followed: "No rules, no lessons, no plan…" (quote from GJ).

Jane Campion had already found the right casting with her in The Piano (Oscar for Holly Hunter), so the congruities are no surprise. With her New Moon at the end of Pisces/start of Aries, which is also Campion's Moon, Hunter's Neptune on 4° Scorpio refines its opposition of the Sun-Saturn. But Hunter's Saturn at 25° Sagittarius in conjunction with the GC also forms a wonderful complement to Campion's Jupiter.

In addition, the role of a flipped-out guru was actually tailor-made for Holly Hunter. With Jupiter-Neptune-Moon's Nodes conjunction at the start of Scorpio, her brachial perceptions about the world and love are more credible than many of the wellness guides on the esoteric market.

Al Parker – David Wenham

The "Faramir" from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings plays the role of the male cop, the fatherly friend of Robin Griffin. And here as well, we can only admire Campion's intuition in casting the character. The Sun of Wenham in conjunction with Moon of Moss, the Sun of Moss in conjunction with the Moon of Wenham. A double whammy that is almost too beautiful for real life, but magnificent in terms of the interaction. With a Pluto-Uranus conjunction, Wenham also has that certain something to also turn the Virgo archetype into something questionable and Mars-Neptune in the Scorpio could be an indication that very dark abysses lurk behind the smart cop image.

So much for the introduction to the little series. Here is some information about the main characters in the meantime. It is certainly worthwhile to also compare the individual actors in certain scenes on the basis of their horoscopes because the truly good and convincing moments between them definitely also have their astrological correlations.

In this sense, we hope that you enjoy watching Top of the Lake.

More information and web links can be found at wikipedia.

Pictures: Title picture - James Shook (en:(wikipedia).) CC-BY-2.5; Jane Campion - Piotr Drabik from Poland, CC-BY-2.0; Elisabeth Moss - lukeford.net CC-BY-SA-2.5; Peter Mullan - Andymiah (own work) CC-BY-3.0; Holly Hunter - Jeff Riedel / TNT (via OTRS) (Jeff Riedel / TNT (via OTRS)) CC-BY-SA-3.0; David Wenham: By Eva Rinaldi from Sydney Australia (Oranges and Sunshine Premiere David Wenham) CC-BY-SA-2.0 - all via Wikimedia Commons

LOOP! at Astrodienst
Orignal article by www.astrologie-zeitung.de
Author: Harald Lebherz

All Loop! articles at a glance

Translated into English by Christine Grimm