Jubilee [DVD]

Product Description

Derek Jarman's second feature transports Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre) through time from 1578 to 1978, where she sees what has become of her once glorious kingdom: law and order have broken down, punks roam the streets, decay and desolation eat away at the basic fabric of society. With a cast featuring the likes of Adam Ant and Toyah Wilcox, a vivid take on the post-apocalyptic urban landscape, and plenty of random violence, this is the ultimate punk movie.

From Amazon.co.uk

Derek Jarman's Jubilee combines a safety-pin and barbed-wire vision of 1977 London in ruins (all burning prams and castrated policemen), a meditation on English mysticism guided by a time-travelling Queen Elizabeth I (the immensely regal Jenny Runacre) and a wild 'n' crazy account of the rampages of a gang of personality punk psychos, to become the closest a British film could come to the John Waters of Pink Flamingos. But there are surprisingly lyrical stretches (the only songs sung all the way through are "Jerusalem" and "My Love is Like a Red Red Rose") and, though future pop stars Toyah Wilcox and Adam Ant are embarrassingly amateurish as rebel street angels, some of the one-note maniacal performances--especially Lex Luther look-alike Orlando as mad media tycoon Borgia Ginz--are relishable. Among the people you've forgotten are in it are Ian Charleson of Chariots of Fire, celebrity shop assistant Jordan (as narrator Amyl Nitrate), Richard O'Brien and Little Nell of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the Lindsay Kemp Dance Troupe and Adolf Hitler of World War II. Arguably the only Derek Jarman movie you might consider watching for pleasure, this is still not exactly the 1970s nostalgia fodder you might expect: even as the haircuts and music have receded into cultural history, the movie's acid-look vision of the worst of England remains horribly sound. The soundtrack features Adam and the Ants ("Deutscher Girls"), Wayne County and the Electric Chairs ("Paranoia Paradise"), Chelsea ("Right to Work"), Suzi Pinns (a thrash punk "Rule Britannia" best appreciated by those with the aural range of a fox terrier), Siouxie and the Banshees ("Love in a Void"), Amilcar ("Wargasm in Pornotopia"), the Slits and Brian Eno ("Slow Water", "Dover Beach"). In the 21st Century, the creative team are either dead or doing pantomime--which is so appropriate that irony doesn't even come into it. --Kim Newman