Sebastiane (Derek Jarman)
Staff Picks
•
1h 25m
Directed by Derek Jarman • Drama • With Leonard Treviglio, Barney James, Richard Warwick, Neil Kennedy • 2012 • 85 minutes
Derek Jarman's (Caravaggio) feature film debut (co-directing with Paul Humfress), Sebastiane is a "one of a kind" (Time Out London) historical drama which lays bare the latent homoeroticism that has always lurked beneath the glossy surface of Hollywood biblical epics. Telling the story of the martyrdom of St. Sebastian in the same way that Italian Renaissance painters used the image of Sebastian to eroticize the male nude, Jarman depicts both earthly lust and spiritual yearning with "an honesty and directness that's the absolute opposite of camp." (The Guardian). Stripped of rank and exiled to a remote Sardinian outpost, Roman soldier and suspected Christian Sebastian becomes the object of his commanding officer's aggressive desire. As Sebastian turns his back on his fellow soldiers in favor of his own mystical longings, the sun-bleached Mediterranean idyll becomes a psycho-sexual hothouse where lust sets the stage for a shocking tableau of death and martyrdom. Audaciously spoken in Latin and supported by one of cult composer Brian Eno's best music scores, Sebastiane is both a milestone of British independent film and a pioneering work of queer cinema.
Up Next in Staff Picks
-
Christopher Nolan Presents: Sanatoriu...
Directed by Quay Brothers • Animation • 2024 • 76 minutes
A ghostly train journey on a forgotten branch line transports a son, Jozef, visiting his dying Father in a remote Galician Sanatorium. Upon arrival, Jozef finds the Sanatorium entirely moribund and run by a dubious Doctor Gotard, who tell...
-
Borgman
Directed by Alex van Warmerdam • Drama • With Jan Bijvoet • 2013 • 113 minutes
A dark suburban fable exploring the nature of evil in unexpected places, BORGMAN follows an enigmatic vagrant who enters the lives of an upper-class family and quickly unravels their carefully curated lifestyle. Charm...
-
Papicha
Directed by Mounia Meddour • Drama • With Lyna Khoudri, Shirine Boutella, Amira Hilda Douaouda • 2019 • 108 minutes
Set in Algeria in the 1990's, Nedjma (Lyna Khoudri, The French Dispatch), is an 18 year-old student passionate about fashion design who refuses to let the tragic events of the Alge...