Derek Jarman is not a film director one can easily digest. His films were made with the intention to shock, to produce some form of catharsis -- positive or negative -- but something so strong that there would be no other way to regard his work as moving, or deeply unsettling.

JUBILEE is his second feature film coming on the heels of SEBASTIANE and tells the story of Queen Elizabeth I, who summons John Dee and has him reveal unto her the England of the future -- to see how far her influence has reached. He does so, and Ariel appears, showing her a country gone to hell, ruled under anarchy, the police, and the media. Here she time travels to this desolate future, becoming Bod and becoming a leader of a female gang of punks, among them Mad, ViV, and Crabs. Several of them have aspirations to transcend their present, dire situation and make it in the pop world -- bringing forth their own punk sensibilities to it -- while moments of extreme violence, mainly against men, ensues, until one of their own is murdered and they take action against those in power.

JUBILEE is pure Jarman. Not an easy film to come into nor to watch for its entire duration because despite having done films of stronger cinematic value, it seems to me that this one is left hanging in its own time of release (1977) when Punk as a movement was screaming its way into the media and trying to assert itself. True, Punk has come and gone -- assimilated into the Modern Rock movement of the 1980s and subsequently, the Alternative Rock scene of the 1990s and the present decade, but then again, I could be speaking too soon. Every time I watch commercials on television advertising the most vicious computer games in which people destroy people and live under a system of chaos, I can see where JUBILEE was ahead of its time and it certainly is by all accounts.

However, there is something vaguely repellent about this movie. I can't place it, and I went into it with a mind as open as the sea. Maybe it's Toyah Willcox's extreme performance as the butch Mad which oozes rage and draws close to insanity. It could also be the nihilism of the scenes in which two men -- one straight, one gay -- get killed at the hands of women who seduce them, among them Bod/Queen Elizabeth I, played by Jenny Runacre. Whatever it is, JUBILEE has set its goal to shock, to generate strong gut reactions to it. On that basis alone it's worth the watch, but from a distance and with a watchful ear so as to pay close attention to the sayings of Borgia Ginz who predict a dire future for human kind.

This Derek Jarman film is split between Queen Elizabeth I and John Dee talking about.... well, I'm not sure what, and modern nihilistic young people living a slovenly life. At first I thought it was going to be a contrasting of the high-flown aspirations of the Enlightenment and an ironic view that "yes, this is what we fought Hitler for"

Well, that's present, but Jenny Runacre as the Virgin Queen doesn't offer much in the way of commentary. I suspect Jarman expected his audience to compare and contrast and reach the correct conclusion, with a strong hint from the director. As such it lacks passion and subtlety, and I'm still wondering why Jarman's policeman wears a helmet which doesn't seem to protect his head.

I first watched this on a dodgy vhs tape in 1979 as a 12 year old.

Trying to be both rebellious & Adrian Mole at the same time, I subsequently raved to my friends that this was punk ( which was already over ) and simply an awesome film that I got from the opening scene to closing titles.

My one warning to friends was that Toyah's character was really really really annoying.

Fast forward 42 years and I decided to watch it again & to my utter horror I realised that it was in fact a steaming pile of pompous art school crap, and not the towering masterpiece of youth culture art house film making I had told all my equally impressionable mates about ?

What was I thinking when I was 12 ?

Thankfully since then my taste has improved greatly & I can now fully appreciate art house & independent cinema as well as marvel movies.

But I got one thing right back then , Toyah's character is still really really really annoying.