The Last of England
by Derek Jarman
Our Price: $18.00
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $10.41 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: 'Spring' Mark Adley, Gay Gaynor, Gerrard McArthur, Matthew Hawkins, Spencer LeighDirector: Derek Jarman
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Cerith Wyn Evans
Cinematographer: Christopher Hughes
Cinematographer: Derek Jarman
Writer: Derek Jarman
Cinematographer: Richard Heslop
Editor: Angus Cook
Editor: John Maybury
Producer: Don Boyd
Producer: James Mackay
Producer: Mayo Thompson
Producer: Yvonne Little
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 87 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-11-29
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Image Entertainment
DVD Reviews of The Last of England
DVD Review: Camera... sound... revolution...
Summary: 5 Stars
"The last of England" is one of Jarman's collage movies. With that I mean that these films show no straight A to B narrative, no real main characters or meaningful dialogues; it's just an accumulation of stark, surreal and offbeat images, with highly experimental music and soundscapes, and a lot of underlying anger. More about that anger later on.
Jarman made a handful of these speciffic kind of films. Before "The last of England" there was "The Angelic conversation", with mesmerising music by Coil, showing in slow motion young men, lovers perhaps, walking, watching, touching, carressing, ultimately just being together, with well-voiced actress Judy Dench dropping a Shakespeare sonnet every now and then. A one and a half hour long moving painting.
In 1990, after Jarman discovered he had HIV, he made his most notorious collage film: "The Garden". A surreal, homosexual version of the Passion of Christ, with a storm of biting images, often both visual stunning and lyrical, a terriffic soundtrack by long time collaborator Simon Fisher Turner, and the necessary references to the same political prisons Margret Tatcher was so eager to impose on the world.
In between these visual mosaics, Jarman directed videoclips (namely for The Petshop Boys) and low budget films, like the semi-biographies "Wittgenstein", "Carravagio" and the play "Edward II" - although strong in visuals and highly original and creative, they don't quite made history like Jarman's super 8mm collgage cinema, partly because narrative and plot may have gotten a bit in the way of total freedom and boundless means of expression.
Or to put it like this: the wish of kicking against the pricks must have somewhat been tempered by the obligation of logical storytelling.
Besides filmmaker, Jarman was a gifted painter, an art director and an obsessive gardener. The perfect, well dosed combination of all these individual talents leads to such mind startling, subversive cinema that makes up its own rules and lives and wrestles wildly within these confinements.
Maybe Jarman was in a way an autistic artist, working completely in his own world that was turning and raging across the universe, driven by the power of pure anger; Jarman was a homosexual in the oppressive Tatcher-times. And to be homosexual then and there meant to be excluded, and exclusion meant discrimination. Jarmans talents to Create was his means to cause minor revolutions, and whether or not these revolutions only took place on the white screen didn't really seem to matter. As long as he had the chance to express and direct his anger.
It's a kind of mutiny without the oppressors being present themselves.
So here is "The last of England", in my book the quintessential Derek Jarman. Sublime poetica, movie making at its purest on all levels. ART in all capitals. Not to understand rationally but more subconsciously. Perhaps the way real cinema should.
More The Last of England reviews:
1
1
Description of The Last of England
Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 05/01/2007Bestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
RebeccaSony; Release date: 2008-10-14; Published: 2008-10-01; DVD
Best price: $6.15
Price in other shops:
Island of Lost Souls (Criterion Collection)IMG; Release date: 2011-10-25; DVD
Best price: $16.27
Price in other shops:
Morvern CallarRelease date: 2003-12-16; DVD
Best price: $24.31
Price in other shops:
Irma Vep (Essential Edition)Zeitgeist Films; Release date: 2008-12-09; DVD
Best price: $15.77
Price in other shops:
The Night of the HunterRelease date: 2000-01-25; DVD
Best price: $10.83
Price in other shops:
The TempestKino International; Release date: 2000-04-10; DVD
Best price: $17.01
Price in other shops:
Jubilee (The Criterion Collection)Image Entertainment; Release date: 2003-05-27; DVD
Best price: $20.00
Price in other shops:
Edward IIImage Entertainment; Release date: 2005-06-14; Published: 2005-06-01; DVD
Best price: $4.92
Price in other shops:
Glitterbox: Derek Jarman (Caravaggio / Wittgenstein / The Angelic Conversation / Blue / Glitterbug)Release date: 2008-06-24; DVD
Best price: $24.99
Price in other shops:
War RequiemRelease date: 2008-09-02; DVD
Best price: $15.28
Price in other shops: