The Last Resort could have been a slight, sunny picture postcard from Biscayne Bay. A piece of fluff that would delight our cravings for the past — whether or not we were actually around to observe that not too distant past firsthand. But instead it’s a heartfelt and jubilant love letter to a paradise found, lost, and reclaimed — Miami’s South Beach.
Sweet’s work is a time capsule of a bygone era, preserved in glorious, saturated technicolor. He was the master of the unexpected composition, and in that sense, The Last Resort is a fitting tribute.
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Original-CinJim Slotek
Original-CinJim Slotek
Awash in colour and sunlight, the doc The Last Resort is both a modern cultural history of the confounding should-be-paradise that is Miami Beach, and a loving bio of a young, short-lived photographer who froze one of its moments in time.
In 70 short minutes, directors Dennis Scholl and Kareem Tabsch skillfully pack their Miami Beach-centric documentary, The Last Resort, with a wealth of visual, emotional, social, cultural and historical significance.
The cultural transformation and re-transformation of Miami Beach (specifically its southern tip, South Beach) is a story that’s fascinating, poignant, garish and, in some ways, befuddling.
Presenting an evocative portrait of a now-bygone era in the city's past, The Last Resort delivers plenty of nostalgia as is spotlights the work of two photographers who captured the period with vivid immediacy.