War Requiem (1989)

Director:

Derek Jarman

Writer:

Wilfred Owen (poems)

Release Date:

6 January 1989 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

A film with no spoken dialogue, just follows the music and lyrics of Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem...

Plot Keywords:

Soldier | Anti War | Independent Film

Cast

Nathaniel Parker	...	Wilfred Owen
Tilda Swinton	...	Nurse
Laurence Olivier	...	Old Soldier
Patricia Hayes	...	Mother
Rohan McCullough	...	Enemy Mother
Nigel Terry	...	Abraham
Owen Teale	...	Unknown Soldier
Sean Bean	...	German Soldier
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Milo Bell
Harvey Cooper
Claire Davenport
Antony Gabriel	...	Liet. Harper
Alex Jennings
Thomas Kett	...	Recruit
Kim Kindersley	...	Soldier 2
Spencer Leigh	...	Soldier 1
David Meyer	...	Lieutenant
Tony Red Richards	...	Soldier
Linda Spurrier	...	Nurse 3
Richard Stirling	...	Soldier 1

Runtime:

92 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby SR

Certification:

UK:PG | Spain:18

Company:

Anglo International Films

Trivia:

First film of Alex Jennings.

Powerful, lyrical visual poem

War Requiem is a vital film in Derek Jarman's filmography; seemingly handcuffed by a score with which he could not play around at all, Jarman could not work his sonic wizardry with his usual collaborator Simon Fisher Turner, or any others. However, here Jarman fused many of his passions and obsessions into one of his most personal statements: working with favorite actors, especially the intense and beautiful Tilda Swinton; using the shimmering, glorious Super 8 of home and play; collaging and staging and digging up artifacts to reposition and reexamine them; and composing image and cuts like a composer working on a new symphony. Dziga Vertov and Dovzhenko may have been working in this vein this decades ago, but if Jarman gives it a try today, the comparisons are to "music video"; naturally, no one is really paying attention if they're making comments like this. The intent and effect of works such as War Requiem (or The Last of England and The Garden) are virtually an antithesis of the shallow, splashy, and seizure-ridden style and pace of MTV and company. Jarman has advanced his uniquely cinematic aesthetic - somewhere between the work of a symphonic composer and a painter, working with light and celluloid instead of oils - in this work that treads a tightrope between narrative and poetic verse. So many sequences of this film are powerful and gutsy and utterly moving: the montage of war footage, building in rhythm and intensity with Britten's score; the tear-inducing shot of Tilda swaying to the music; the nurses playing "Blind Man¹s Bluff"; the smoke and flowers. Derek crafted one of his most hearfelt, original, and spontaneously lyrical movies in War Requiem; now it only needs a top-notch release on DVD.