Sebastiane (Jarman, 1976): Barbican Cinema, 6.20pm
This extraordinary film is part of the Barbican Cinema's Queer 70s season. Details here.Time Out review:
Not exactly typical of the British independent cinema, this not only
tackles an avowedly 'difficult' subject (the relationship between sex
and power, and the destructive force of unrequited passion), but does so
within two equally 'difficult' frameworks: that of exclusively male
sexuality, and that of the Catholic legend of the martyred saint, set
nearly 1,700 years ago. Writer/director Derek Jarman sees Sebastian as a
common Roman soldier, exiled to the back of beyond with a small platoon
of bored colleagues, who gets selfishly absorbed in his own mysticism
and then picked on by his emotionally crippled captain. It's filmed
naturalistically, to the extent that the dialogue is in barracks-room
Latin, and carries an extraordinary charge of conviction in the staging
and acting; it falters only in the slightly awkward elements of parody
and pastiche. One of a kind, it's compulsively interesting on many
levels.
Tony Rayns
Here (and above) is an extract.
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