Top of the Lake’s Emotional Landscape: Reparation at the Edge of the World

Susannah Radstone

doi:10.1080/02560046.2017.1348687

Top of the Lake’s Emotional Landscape: Reparation at the Edge of the World

Susannah Radstone

History

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

Abstract

This essay discusses the TV series Top of the Lake (Campion 2013) within the frameworks of theories of trauma and psychoanalytic object relations. The essay’s focus falls on the prominence given to the New Zealand landscape in the series and in reviews, and on Top of the Lake’s apparently paradoxical combining of a narrative concern with extreme violence and performances that evoke childlike playfulness. Having examined the possibility of categorising the series as a trauma text, the essay concludes by proposing that its formal and narrative elements combine to produce a spectatorial experience that evokes potential space while triggering reparative impulses.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	87-94
Number of pages	8
Journal	Critical Arts
Volume	31
Issue number	5
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/02560046.2017.1348687
Publication status	Published - 2017

Keywords

landscape
potential space
reparation

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1080/02560046.2017.1348687

Cite this

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Top of the Lake’s Emotional Landscape: Reparation at the Edge of the World

Abstract

Keywords

UN SDGs

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