It is a very ambitious movie, and perhaps it should earn points for that. But it is just so poorly conceived. Poorly film, poor sound, attrocious acting, bad timing.

You may like it if you like punk sensibility and garage band production values.


1977 wasn't Just about Street Parties   January 11, 2002
 13 out of 19 found this review helpful

...'Jubilee' got it's first TV premier in November'85 on Channel 4 back in the days when they use to put a Red triangle in one of the corners of the Screen. Laughable!!
I didn't have a video 17 years ago so I had to sneek down stairs and watch it on my parents TV with the Sound down. Still I can still recall the film years later and being fixated by it.
Even my Film Studies Teacher asked the class whether anyone had watched it and taped it. Radical Days.
In a time of Pretty people and manufactured Films,videos and Muzak; this film dared to shock and boy oh boy did it. The sets,the sex,the clothes,music and the especially the make-up and haircuts. Toyah the pyromaniac with the vivid Red hair and Jordan with her famous twinsets,love of Floris and her asymetrical make-up.
Jenny Runacre's stunning portrayal as Queen Elizabeth I and as the Punk Queen of all she surveys.
Some of the Music is dire but the attention to detail cannot be denied it's almost as if in '77 they had a idea of what fashion would look like in the 80's and 90's. I dare anyone to be that inventive now. The economic and political situation was just perfect; a feeling that Great Britain's best days were behind her; economically stagnant,politically adrift and just two years before Thatcher's brave new world arrived.Oh yes and not forgetting that the Monarch had permitted a few chairs and tables in the street to eat blancmange,jelly and wave the Union Jack.
In an era when people seem to spend most of their precious time on their Mobiles and wondering where the next Ibiza hioliday is coming 'Jubliee' summed up a far and distant country. Slightly done in and worn down. Down but not exactly out.
25 long years later and here we are in 2002.
Will another creative cutting edge Director make a homage with the up and coming.
Kate Winslett in the Jenny Runacre role or maybe Madonna (No maybe not).
Truth is it wouldn't happen we're far too properous to care or dare.
Britain in '02 is different to '77.
The agression wouldn't be genuine and the people too perfect looking. Caste of Hollyoaks I don't think so.
And anyway most of the set disappeared under Docklands re-development and flashy apartments.
The reality is different and any remake would be just pure nostaglia.


Anarchy in the UK   July 1, 2001
 9 out of 9 found this review helpful

Derek Jarman's 1977 film Jubilee, said to be the "first official punk film" is one of the most original and disturbing urban dystopias to emerge from that era of British film-making. Setting itself in a version of late 70s London where anarchy reigns and Judge Dredd-style police are as lawless as the gangs on the street, the film never fails to surprise and Punk rock experts can play a game of spot-the-cameo. Whilst all this takes place, there's also the matter of Queen Elizabeth I, brought forward in time by the angel Arial to gain supreme knowledge...

Violent and twisted, Jubille manages, however, to convince that destruction isn't the only aspect of an anarchic society, and questions the meaning meaning of life, love, history and even the violence itself in a world without balance.

The only extra on the disc is a 40 minute BBC Face-to-Face documentary with Derek Jarman, which, although interesting, does not tackle the subject of this film, which is a shame as some background on the film would have been very interesting. Even so, a curio that belongs in many peoples collections.