Review #595: 'Jubilee' (1978)

Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre), guided by John Dee (Richard O'Brien) and spirit guide Ariel (David Brandon), travels forward in time to the eve of the Silver Jubilee to witness Britain in a state of moral and physical decay. The Queen is dead, and the streets are now seemingly ran by groups of punks wearing outlandish clothes and face-paint. One particular group, consisting of, amongst others, Amyl Nitrate (Jordan), Mad (Toyah Willcox), Bod (Runacre in a dual role), Crabs (Nell Campbell) and Chaos (Hermine Demoriane), tend to spend their time smashing cars, having sex, participating in the odd murder, and generally giving the two-finger salute to anything resembling conformity. Crabs picks up a young punk named Kid (Adam Ant), who has aspirations to be a rock star, and finds himself being swept up by the system.

Derek Jarman certainly wasn't a punk - he was at least one generation too late and his art was generally  more focused on themes of homosexuality and homoerotica - but Jubilee seems to aspire to be a film that defines punk. As well as the many punk acts that appears in the film (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wayne County and The Stilts all appear as well as the aforementioned Jordan, Wilcox and Adam Ant), Jubilee adopts a punk aesthetic. The Britain of the 'future' is a dystopian wasteland, filmed in the poorer areas of London that are still marked by the Blitz, visualised through a grey-blue tinted lens. The outfits are a ragged mixture of fashions and social decadence from years and centuries past, combined to make a mockery of social conformity and mass consumerism.

Yet the film is a lot more than a representation of a movement that caught the director's eye. Jarman combines themes of sci-fi, social commentary, the idea of 'Britishness', and satire, in what is ultimately a bit of a mess, but an intriguing and often fascinating mess nonetheless. In fact, this roughness works in favour of it's nihilistic outlook, and the episodic structure offers some bizarre and outlandish vignettes (my personal favourites being Jordan's rendition of Rule Britannia in an Union Jack dress and the murder of a transvestite). But the film wanders on for a bit too long, lessening its impact, and shifting focus to Kid's dull plight in the music business (although it does introduce the phenomenal Jack Birkett).

This is certainly Jarman like I've never seen him before, possibly the most complex and 'cinematic' of his filmography, but the film sometimes overreach itself. Often the film becomes confusing, shifting it's tone from dramatic to satirical, causing the message that Jarman is trying to communicate to blur to the point where I didn't know whether to laugh or to ponder. Is this a film celebrating punk and rebellion? Or is it satirising punk? I've read various writings about this film that claim both. As a film, it lacks lacks narrative and focus, but as an experience, it is certainly memorable. It also has a great cast of actors and musicians that are still remembered in cult circles from old Britain, including Ian Charleson, Karl Johnson, Claire Davenport and Lindsay Kemp, for those, like me, who enjoy looking back in time at Britain, which is ironically the opposite to what Queen Elizabeth I does in Jubilee.


Directed by: Derek Jarman
Starring: Jenny Runacre, Nell Campbell, Toyah Willcox, Jordan, Hermine Demoriane, Ian Charleson, Karl Johnson, Adam Ant
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie