Focus on DEREK JARMAN: The Garden (1990)

For the sake of being contrary, I’m going to peg The Garden as one of my favourite Jarman experiences thus far, at least amongst his semi-narrative work. Without the artifice of Shakespeare or Owen or Britten, Jarman’s flights of artistic fancy present as both more personal and more immediately political. The preoccupations are the same (love/sex, religiosity and modernity) but the flow is more controlled. The anger is more precise.

Tilda Swinton returns, this time as a modern day Madonna hounded by media. There’s also a pair of lovers (Johnny Mills and Philip MacDonald) tangled in the grip of church damnation and media flagellation. All this sprawls from Jarman’s own head as he slumbers on his notes in his small, garden-circled cottage by the English coast at Dungeness. Like The Last of England, there is a lot of free association here and not too much to cling to in terms of scripting. It is a poetic affair that works an association more than narrative, with religion-queering parallels for the Judas’ betrayal and Christs trial and crucifixion played out against a backdrop of capitalism, fame-hungry paparazzi and the garden’s electrical power plant wasteland.

Yet there is much more hope here than in his previous films. Though Jarman was struggling with his own mortality and the oppression of contemporary Britain, The Garden feels hopeful, even transcendent. His religion, his epiphany even – in the bond of beautiful Christ-like lovers, is resurrected in Dungeness’ paradise, serene amongst the power lines.

Next up: Edward II.

This post contributes to Director Focus: Derek Jarman.