Strong and Moving!

Best movie of this year hands down!

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

I first saw this movie not very long after it was released here in America. It was at a small art theater and it was part of the bill with the Who's "Quadrophenia." I had only a vague idea about Jarman and his movies, so I decided to stay and watch "Jubilee." It was -- and still is -- quite an experience. As jumbled, rambling, and wandering as the film is, there are moments that it all seems to make a certain sense. At long last, I have the Criterion DVD so as to take a look whenever I dare. The most memorable moments are still those when Amyl Nitrate (Jordan) does her performance to Suzi Pinn's "Rule Britannia." Is it art? Is it trash? Is it Punk or just what? The answer, of course, is, Yes. Unlike some, it seems, I can accept it for what it is, even though it not my usual fare when it comes to cinema. I think that it is certainly worth a look, particularly if one is willing to be open-minded and see something quite different than the usual predictable, tepid movie fare that makes the merely bland seem exciting. I doubt that this will make Roger Ebert's list of Great Movies, but nice to see something actually different....

Queen Elizabeth asks her court alchemist to show her a vision of England in the future, and the alchemist summons a angle/spirit guide(played by Adam Ant) who transports her to London 400 years into the future where it is a post apacalyptic wasteland. The story then follows a group of nihilistic girl punks who all get lengthy monologues(as does almost every character) on British history, art, sex, love, the music industry, anarchy, God, the end of western civilization etc, and their dealings with a mass media mogul who virtually controls the city, sadistic fascist police, and each other. All of the dialogue between the Queen, her alchemist, and the spirit is all in poetic verse, while all of the future talking is mostly cockney sloganeering which was so pretentious in the first couple of scenes I almost turned it off. However it really picked up after about the first fifteen minutes and you barely notice it. It's not really a film about punk so much as it is a film about the breakdown of civilization, which uses the punk scene as vehicle for the metaphor. It was actually a lot better than I thought it would be, I definitely recommend it for those of you interested in this sort of thing. Recording legend Brian Eno also does the score, and if that doesn't sweeten to pot for your to watch this, nothing will. Jarman has had many successes since, but none this vital, at least not for me.

An utterly bizarre film to be sure, Jubilee is an anarchic take on history and science fiction that tells, simultaneously, of Queen Elizabeth I's reign and a dystopian England in 1977 where gangs of women roam the countryside.Punk-SciFi would reach its apogee with Repo Man, but here's where it more or less starts: With Adam Ant and a host of nameless actors gallivanting about London in outrageous garb. It's an amateur production, I think, that lacks in acting and cinematography. Even the dystopian vision of the then-present, though squalid, lacks snap. Derek Jarman, the director, would go on to do greater, and more adventurous, work that this, most notably Blue. So why an 7 out of 10? Because polish and anything more than a DIY sensibility would have ruined this film. What it lacks in technical ability (and it pretty much lacks entirely of technical ability), it makes up for in energy and spirit and ideas. In many ways, it reminds me of Night of the Living Dead--a rather amateur production that, despite technical faults, rises above its limitations and is entirely effective. It's not a great film, but it's an incredibly interesting one. Jubilee is a cinematic experience unlike very few others. It's about as far from mainstream as one can get in non-avant garde English language film (no concessions are made to the middle of the road), so I cannot recommend this to everyone. If you want to see something different (are you a fan of Repo Man, for instance) and something rather unique, check the movie out. PS You can also snobbishly remark that Sofia Coppola's upcoming Marie Antoinette is nothing but a rehash of most of the ideas put forth here, when it comes out later this year.

Derek Jarman is not a film director one can easily digest. His films were made with the intention to shock, to produce some form of catharsis -- positive or negative -- but something so strong that there would be no other way to regard his work as moving, or deeply unsettling.JUBILEE is his second feature film coming on the heels of SEBASTIANE and tells the story of Queen Elizabeth I, who summons John Dee and has him reveal unto her the England of the future -- to see how far her influence has reached. He does so, and Ariel appears, showing her a country gone to hell, ruled under anarchy, the police, and the media. Here she time travels to this desolate future, becoming Bod and becoming a leader of a female gang of punks, among them Mad, ViV, and Crabs. Several of them have aspirations to transcend their present, dire situation and make it in the pop world -- bringing forth their own punk sensibilities to it -- while moments of extreme violence, mainly against men, ensues, until one of their own is murdered and they take action against those in power.JUBILEE is pure Jarman. Not an easy film to come into nor to watch for its entire duration because despite having done films of stronger cinematic value, it seems to me that this one is left hanging in its own time of release (1977) when Punk as a movement was screaming its way into the media and trying to assert itself. True, Punk has come and gone -- assimilated into the Modern Rock movement of the 1980s and subsequently, the Alternative Rock scene of the 1990s and the present decade, but then again, I could be speaking too soon. Every time I watch commercials on television advertising the most vicious computer games in which people destroy people and live under a system of chaos, I can see where JUBILEE was ahead of its time and it certainly is by all accounts.However, there is something vaguely repellent about this movie. I can't place it, and I went into it with a mind as open as the sea. Maybe it's Toyah Willcox's extreme performance as the butch Mad which oozes rage and draws close to insanity. It could also be the nihilism of the scenes in which two men -- one straight, one gay -- get killed at the hands of women who seduce them, among them Bod/Queen Elizabeth I, played by Jenny Runacre. Whatever it is, JUBILEE has set its goal to shock, to generate strong gut reactions to it. On that basis alone it's worth the watch, but from a distance and with a watchful ear so as to pay close attention to the sayings of Borgia Ginz who predict a dire future for human kind.