Last Resort (2000)

Director:

Pawel Pawlikowski

Writers:

Rowan Joffe (writer)
Pawel Pawlikowski (writer)

Release Date:

2 March 2001 (Greece)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

When a young Russian woman and her son leave Moscow to meet her fiancé, who fails to show up, she declares political asylum. |

Plot Keywords:

Political Asylum | Russian | Mother Son Relationship | Bureaucracy | Racial Discrimination

Awards:

13 wins & 7 nominations

Cast

Dina Korzun	...	Tanya
Artyom Strelnikov	...	Artyom
Paddy Considine	...	Alfie
Steve Perry	...	Les (as Lindsey Honey)
Perry Benson	...	Immigration Officer
Katie Drinkwater	...	Katie
Dave Bean	...	Frank
Adrian Scarborough	...	Council Official
David Auker	...	2nd Council Official
Bruce Byron	...	Police Officer
Jim Trevellyan	...	Station Guard
Marcus Redwood	...	Cafe Owner
Zoe Sharpe	...	Gang Girl
Daniel Mobey	...	Danny

Also Known As:

Last Resort (Italy) [it]
Last Resort (Spain) [es]
To teleftaio katafygio (Greece) [el]
Transit Palace (France) [fr]
Viimeinen ranta (Finland) [fi]

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English | Russian

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

France:U | Hong Kong:IIB | Netherlands:12 | Spain:13 | Sweden:7 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Margate, Kent, England, UK

Company:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Quotes:

[Needing money, Tanya tries to sell her mink pelts to a clothing store owner]
Tanya: Hello.
Store owner: Can I help you?
Tanya: Would you be interested of this? It is a fur... Russian fur, from Siberia. It is very... it is very... valuable. I have two pieces. And... and, uhh, it's very beautiful, very expensive... in Russia. And, you can wear them as a hat, or like scarf, or you can pin it on your coat... if you want.
Store owner: Nah, I'm not interested in anything like that.
Tanya: Ok, thank you.

Soundtrack:

Happy Heart

The message is better than the movie.

A glowing review of this film on the radio enticed me. The review, I recalled in retrospect, was about the film's technical points. I experienced the film as a sad and predictable home movie about a Russian woman and child, who simply do not know what they are doing with their lives. The one counterpoint character in the life-in-the-gulag story line, played very well by Paddy Considine, kept the film alive, in my opinion. I was impressed with the film's ending. There was a message about responsibility and self victimization that was very refreshing. I did not feel that the film offered entertainment, even in my broadest definition, but it did offer a look at poverty, brutish bureaucracy and the consequences of ignorance in the whole realm of illegal immigration. Perhaps it could be shown regularly at airports in developing countries.