It's funny how only now, over twenty years after coming out, I've been able to have access to SEBASTIANE, the movie that once upon a time in a sheltered country such as Dominican Republic, was, aside from MAURICE, the ice-breaker that would identify two gay men to each other in a non-gay environment. Seeing it now I can understand how in the mid-80s (or when it came out in 1976) this would have been one of those films so controversial even the act of lifting the sleeve off the video shelf meant (if you weren't out) you first had to look to the left, to the right, and over your shoulder to make sure no one was looking. Such is the power of a film like this: no disguised theme, no hints of the "other sexuality" -- this is homosexuality at its frankest and cruelest.
The story of the love-hate relationship between Sebastiane and a Severus, a Roman centurion, and its consequences. It's shot in an entirely realistic setting even when it bears a loose plot thread, but this is Derek Jarman's tendency to focus on style over substance. While there were times when I wondered what would the purpose of such a story be the theme of unrequited love/lust wasn't lost on me: Sebastiane is an outsider, with brooding looks, and an aura about him that sets him apart from his fellow comrades who spend their time engaged in trivial hedonism. Severus is smitten by him, lusts at him from a distance, and then decides to submit him to torture after torture because of the indifference, then rejection, he suffers. (This is a reflection of a dance sequence seen at the start of the film in which a dancer is "sacrificed" to the lust of a group of dancers.)
Derek Jarman's movie seems to be less a straightforward narration instead of a contemplative poem of a homo-social society where women are absent, and men are allowed to engage in intimacy with one another. It's on occasion a slow movie because of this and by today's values could even be considered a little cheesy here and there, especially in the slow-motion sequence when Severus observes Sebastiane take a shower. Is Sebastiane provoking him by showering like that or is this Severus' gaze taking in all of Sebastiane's body? One wouldn't know had it been for another scene, that of Anthony and Adrian, lovers in the open, again observed by Severus's point of view. These two scenes make Severus less a flat villain and closer to a man desperately love with a man he cannot have, a man who is, essentially, a tease.
Not a movie that will appeal to everyone, but one that has, due to its release and presence in video stores, and due to its director's prominence, opened the doors to more films of this kind which have their own audience and acceptance whether they are contemporary classics or exercises in homoerotic cheese. Derek Jarman accelerated conscious, gay film-making by decades at a time when a "gay presence" was little more than a shadow or something to be laughed at or pitied (as with the advent of AIDS and AIDS-themed films). You have to admire a man who, having died of the disease, decided to "get up and do something" instead of wallowing in maudlin. There hasn't been anyone quite like him, but hopefully, that will change.
The story of the love-hate relationship between Sebastiane and a Severus, a Roman centurion, and its consequences. It's shot in an entirely realistic setting even when it bears a loose plot thread, but this is Derek Jarman's tendency to focus on style over substance. While there were times when I wondered what would the purpose of such a story be the theme of unrequited love/lust wasn't lost on me: Sebastiane is an outsider, with brooding looks, and an aura about him that sets him apart from his fellow comrades who spend their time engaged in trivial hedonism. Severus is smitten by him, lusts at him from a distance, and then decides to submit him to torture after torture because of the indifference, then rejection, he suffers. (This is a reflection of a dance sequence seen at the start of the film in which a dancer is "sacrificed" to the lust of a group of dancers.)
Derek Jarman's movie seems to be less a straightforward narration instead of a contemplative poem of a homo-social society where women are absent, and men are allowed to engage in intimacy with one another. It's on occasion a slow movie because of this and by today's values could even be considered a little cheesy here and there, especially in the slow-motion sequence when Severus observes Sebastiane take a shower. Is Sebastiane provoking him by showering like that or is this Severus' gaze taking in all of Sebastiane's body? One wouldn't know had it been for another scene, that of Anthony and Adrian, lovers in the open, again observed by Severus's point of view. These two scenes make Severus less a flat villain and closer to a man desperately love with a man he cannot have, a man who is, essentially, a tease.
Not a movie that will appeal to everyone, but one that has, due to its release and presence in video stores, and due to its director's prominence, opened the doors to more films of this kind which have their own audience and acceptance whether they are contemporary classics or exercises in homoerotic cheese. Derek Jarman accelerated conscious, gay film-making by decades at a time when a "gay presence" was little more than a shadow or something to be laughed at or pitied (as with the advent of AIDS and AIDS-themed films). You have to admire a man who, having died of the disease, decided to "get up and do something" instead of wallowing in maudlin. There hasn't been anyone quite like him, but hopefully, that will change.