The Garden

Derek Jarman had two gardens. One was in Dungeness, he started to work on it after being diagnosed with HIV. ''The gardener digs in another time, without past or future, beginning or end,'' he wrote in his journal. The other one, this film, opens with images of a man sleeping on a desk, his face resting on an open notebook as a voice proclaims ''I want to share this emptiness with you,'' before a series of vignettes begins in which hallucinations of a two-man-Eden become progressively unravelled. This is a cinema of ecstasy; extinction looms from all sides, friends die silently, queer bodies are whipped, hanged, stoned and chased by cameras. There is the growing impression that representation means violence, means imprisonment. But this is also a cinema of sharing, stemming from the hope that it is indeed possible to share one's dreams, failures, uncertainties and cares. Jarman repeatedly shows himself tending the garden and offers us snapshots of mushrooms, stones, butterflies, poppies, snails, crows, clouds, embraces and music: a whole ecology of images.

details

  • Runtime

    95 min
  • Country

    Great Britain
  • Year of Presentation

    2019
  • Year of Production

    1990
  • Director

    Derek Jarman
  • Cast

    Tilda Swinton, Johnny Mills, Kevin Collins, Pete Lee-Wilson, Spencer Leigh, Jody Graber, Roger Cook, Jessica Martin, Philip Macdonald
  • Production Company

    Basilisk Communications
  • Berlinale Section

    Forum
  • Berlinale Category

    Feature Film

Biography Derek Jarman

Born 1942, died 1994. Studied painting and worked as a costume and set designer for the Royal Ballet. Worked as a set designer on Ken Russell’s 1970 film THE DEVILS. Made numerous short films before directing his first feature, SEBASTIANE, in 1976. His first film to screen at the Berlinale was THE TEMPEST in 1979. In addition to his subversive period dramas and experimental films, he began directing avant-garde music videos in the 1970s. He was also a committed campaigner for gay rights in Britain.

Filmography Derek Jarman

1977 Jubilee | 1979 The Tempest | 1984 Imagining October | 1985 The Angelic Conversation | 1986 Caravaggio | 1987 Aria | 1989 War Requiem | 1990 The Garden | 1993 Blue | 2014 Will You Dance with Me?