Architectural Utopias – Cinematic Distopias

THE LAST OF ENGLAND

• Director: Derek Jarman
• UK / 1988 / BluRay / Colour / 91´ / English; Turkish s.t.

• Screenplay: Derek Jarman
• Director of Photography: Derek Jarman, Christopher Hughes, Richard Heslop, Cerith Wyn Evans
• Editing: Angus Cook, Peter Cartwright, John Maybury, Sally Yeadon
• Music: Simon Fisher-Turner
• Cast: Spencer Leigh, Gerrard McArthur, Tilda Swinton, Nigel Terry, Richard Heslop
• Producer: James Mackay, Don Boyd
• World Sales: Screen Bound

- 1998 BERLİN Teddy Award, CICAE Prize

With its surrealistic and poetic structure The Last of England is maybe the toughest film of Derek Jarman, one of the most radical, innovative and creative directors of England between 1970-1990 and the New Queer Cinema. Based on his personal experiences, Jarman makes a critique of the cultural and traditional collapse of England in the 1980s and the subversion brought upon by Thatcherism as he presents one of the most accomplished examples of the punk aesthetic by serving up a collage of super-8 films. Treading the margins of experimentalism, The Last of England blends the images of unrest from the lawless streets of London with modern dance. In an early career performance Tilda Swinton mesmerizes the audience.

This film was a Meetings on the Bridge participant.