Jack Birkett

(On Cable TV, July 2022) One of the worst things I can say about a film is that it smells—a pejorative usually applied to movies that seem to take place in grimy run-down surroundings, with characters that look not only as if they haven’t taken a bath, but as busy plotting the downfall of civilization so that no one else can either. A lot of films revolving around post-May 68 student uprisings feel this way, and a surprising number of punk band movies as well. It also applies to Jubilee, but I’m not sure the writer-director Derek Jarman would consider “smelling” to be a criticism. It’s a weird movie like that—the plot begins with Queen Elizabeth (the first) time-travelling to 1970s London after the strangling of Queen Elizabeth II by a crown-stealing street hooligan. Much more violence follows, but not necessarily a plot—our punk characters merrily murder each other in run-down surroundings but can’t sustain a plot for more than a single scene. Clearly designed to freak the mundanes, Jubilee is far more avant-garde than narrative-oriented. Even to 2022 audiences, the characters are extreme, aimless and nihilistic in their casual violence. But the result is not provocative—it’s a mess that dulls itself in exasperating nonsense. I get that observers of the late-1970s British punk scene will get a lot more than others from Jubilee, but I suspect that many viewers (and not necessarily only the squares) will roll their eyes and move on. Yes, it’s supposed to be a satire, but still. There’s admittedly something intriguing in using Elizabeth I as a viewpoint character to the evolution of British society… but not in this way. (Although Jack Birkett, credited as Orlando, is magnificent here as an aristocrat of sorts.) Jubilee feels grimy simply by watching it—and as I’ve said, I can only imagine what it smelled.