The Angelic Conversation
This is one of Derek Jarman's most stylish and most demanding films, a lyrical visual counterpoint to William Shakespeare's sonnets read as a voiceover by Judi Dench. The sonnets themselves remain a riddle to interpreters of the playwright's works. Just who were they addressed to? Were they written for a man or a woman? Jarman takes advantage of this ambiguity, linking the poems with a dreamlike, homoerotic fantasy. The Angelic Conversation is also a remarkable esthetic experiment in which the director combines film and video techniques, copying images from Super-8 videotapes onto 35 mm film. As a result, the footage has a particular grainy texture, and the film itself pulsates with images that reveal, first and foremost, Jarman's painterly and photographic sensitivity. Illuminated bodies, post-industrial landscapes, and nature are all combined in a nostalgic, hypnotic tale of love.
Derek Jarman
An icon of queer cinema and counterculture, Derek Jarman is both an artist and an activist. He made his full-length debut in 1976 with Sebastiane, a gay interpretation of the legend of a saint. He looked for homosexual subjects in literature (Shakespeare’s The Angelic Conversation), in the lives of historical figures (Edward II), and in representatives of the world of culture (Wittgenstein). For Jarman, the combination of queer and punk esthetics with an anarchical message was an element of his opposition to conservative reality. He died of AIDS in 1994.
Selected filmography
1976 Sebastian / Sebastiane
1979 Burza / The Tempest
1986 Anielskie rozmowy / The Angelic Conversation
1993 Wittgenstein
1993 Blue