
The film is utterly bleak ... but so many nice bodies to look at!
What is it?
A 1987 British independent film created and directed by Derek Jarman.
What’s it about?
Okay, the thing to make clear at the start is that this isn’t your usual film. It’s really a work of visual art employing film as its medium (rather than paint or pencil or marble). The theme is something like the end of Civilization. So the film is mostly a series of images (with some voiceover and music and occasional snippets of text) of apocalyptic scenes: fire, wind, terrorism, scorched earth. That sort of thing. And then there are idyllic scenes from the past (which appear to be old home movies). All in all, it’s a fast-cut, ever-changing series of complex images depicting what could be “the end of days.” It all feels totally relevant to 2025, by the way.
Nothing in the way of plot?
Not really. You can try to formulate a plot if you like, I guess. But no.
So what’s the queer content?
Everything. Jarman was gay, and the film was made in the relatively early and utterly hopeless days of the AIDS crisis. The film is full of homoeroticism, hot-looking guys, kinky sex, drag queens. And Tilda Swinton—with long hair!
I don’t really have a sense of whether you’ll be giving this a star or not.
I struggled with this. Although it’s an amazing film, there’s nothing in it that’s revelatory for a queer viewer. So I was tempted to not give it a star on the basis that its LGBTQ “value” is low. But then, when I realized it’s not really a film in the usual sense, but a work of visual art, I asked myself, What would a good piece of queer visual art look like? And the answer is: It would look like this!
This is revolutionary queer art of the highest order. It looks at the world through an utterly queer lens, and doesn’t much like what it sees, but makes it beautiful and sexy nonetheless.
So, a star?
Two stars. It’s got me inspired to seek out other queer “art” films.
Write a comment