The Angelic Conversation

Derek Jarman, well known for his controversial films that revisit history from a gay perspective, has retold the stories of Edward II, Saint Sebastian, Caravaggio, and Wittgenstein. With THE ANGELIC CONVERSATION, he visually explores the underlying homoerotic themes in William Shakespeare's sonnets. A collection of 14 sonnets, read by Judi Dench in voice-over, becomes a backdrop for Jarman's trademark visual collages of surreal and haunting images that explore homosexual desire. A combination of eroticism and mysticism, Jarman celebrates the senses as he revisits the postapocalyptic dreamlike landscapes that often inhabit his cinematic world. Jarman's camera, filming with a haunting ethereal quality, follows a young man as he battles the elements--caves covered in mist give way to the ocean and flames as the man seeks a lover to revel in the power of the senses. Jarman's painterly non-narrative style explores the hauntingly beautiful passages of the sonnets with a vibrant and intensely homoerotic sensibility that delights in blowing apart the status quo theories on William Shakespeare. The film is set to an amniotic soundtrack by Coil.