‘Deep Water’ puts noir on a sunny Australian beach

Above: Noah Taylor and Yael Stone in “Deep Water.” (Sean O’Reilly/Blackfella Films, via SBS)

When I was studying film in college, I was introduced to a realm of cinema I didn’t even know existed.

This was especially true in the classes I took at the University of California, San Diego. The instructor, Manny Farber, had a firm grasp on what he liked – and disliked – about film. And much of what he liked was never going to play at your local moviehouse.

Michael Snow isn’t exactly Michael Bay.

My own personal tastes were far more wide-ranging. In addition to the films I would watch in class, those by Jean-Luc Godard and others, I would still watch whatever popular films that were released.

The same continues today. In recent weeks I’ve watched the Alex Gibney documentary “Totally Under Control,” the Charlie Kaufman mind-bender “I’m Thinking of Ending Things” and, most recently, the Netflix “Rebecca” remake.

But I’ve also made time for the farcical “Borat Subsequent Moviefilm” and as much Nordic Noir as I could find.

That latter-most interest took me to a place seldom associated with noir, at least not meteorologically. While searching through my choices on Amazon Prime, I found an Australian-based four-part miniseries titled “Deep Water.”

The series is set in and around Bondi Beach, one of Sydney’s top tourist sites, which sits in a cove a short bus ride from Sydney Harbor and is home to bathers, surfers and sun-worshipers of all kinds.

The set-up is simple enough: A pair of Sydney detectives, Tori Lustigman (Yael Stone) and Nick Manning (Noah Taylor) investigate a murder and discover ties to a string of similar crimes involving gay men.

What’s intriguing about the series is that it captures a real-life series of killings that plagued Sydney during the 1980s and ’90s. It’s also interesting to see the veteran Taylor in a role that is far different from his performances in, say, the “Lara Croft” films or “Game of Thrones.”

It might seem strange that, during this time of pandemic, I spend any time at all watching studies of crime. But then given all that's going on in the world, maybe it’s not all that weird.

No more weird, anyway, than – prepare yourself before clicking – something like this.