Stained flesh - Ireland as idyll damp patch in Mike Leighs Naked

This article reflects on a number of enigmatic allusions to Ireland that surface in Mike Leighs 1993 film Naked. The essay explores these allusions in terms of Irelands cinematic positioning as a shorthand for home and an idyllic retreat from modernity. Thereafter, it ventures a more speculative thesis that, in fact, the films cryptic Irish signifiers can be understood as emblematic of a postcolonial unconscious at work in contemporary Britain. The discussion draws on existing Leigh scholarship and contemporary postcolonial theory.