Space, Place, and Architecture in British Films

Abstract

This chapter explores the representation of place in Last Resort within the contexts of a broader discussion of the history of representation of spaces and places on British film (including social realism). It argues that Last Resort draws much of its representational power from the ways in which it employs the semiotic potential of Margate architecture to speak of the struggle of its central character, Tanya. The chapter also demonstrates that, even more than contemporary British films such as Fish Tank and Red Road, Last Resort effectively foregrounds the semiotic power of architecture. The chapter charts key debates concerning the ways in which British cinema has depicted British places and constructed representational spaces. Last Resort develops a sense of space that draws on the obvious tensions that exist between past and present readings of carnivalesque and brutalist architecture in particular, and what these shifting interpretations might suggest about the construction of identity.