The Garden (1990 film)

Lacking almost any dialogue, the film is shown as Jarman's own subjective musings, which are tempered by the reality of his own mortality—when HIV-positive Jarman made the film he was facing death from AIDS. Jarman reads a moving elegy to lost friends at the film's end.[5]

The film follows a seemingly innocent and loving gender fluid couple whose idealistic existence is interrupted when they are arrested, severely humiliated, tortured and killed. In between this are nonlinear images of religious iconography — a Madonna (Tilda Swinton) who is overexposed and harassed by paparazzi in balaclavas; a transwoman who, to the background soundtrack of a fox hunt is similarly humiliated and shamed by paparazzi and privileged cis-women; Jesus who painfully watches the world pass him by; a Judas who is hanged and used as a tool to advertise credit cards; and water dropping from an image of Christ on the crucifix. The film is explicity not a purely "gay" film but one in which the director's struggles with gender fluidity and the need to adopt a compromise identity as a gay man are repeatedly made clear including scenes expressing distress at the abandonment of a feminine identity and the shallowness of a gay culture centered purely on sexual intercourse. Other images include the Twelve Apostles as 12 women in babushkas, sitting at a table by the seaside as they run their fingers around the edges of wine glasses to create an ominous hum.[5]

It also focuses on what it meant to be required to be viewed as queer in the 20th century, highlighting Section 28, of which Jarman was from the start a noted opponent. The film is augmented with unusually tinted shots of beaches and bizarre changes between classical, Cypriot and other types of music and sound.

The film has a soundtrack by Simon Fisher-Turner and production design by Derek Brown.

The Garden is available on DVD and Blu-ray.[6]

• Tilda Swinton as Madonna
• Johnny Mills as Lover
• Philip MacDonald as Joseph
• Pete Lee-Wilson as Devil
• Spencer Leigh as Mary Magdalene / Adam
• Jody Graber as Young Boy
• Roger Cook as Christ
• Kevin Collins as Lover
• Jack Birkett as Pontius (as Orlando)

Other cast members; Dawn Archibald, Milo Bell, Vernon Dobtcheff, Michael Gough, Mirabelle La Manchega and Jessica Martin.

On Rotten Tomatoes, The Garden has a 100% approval rating, based on six reviews, with an average rating of 8.75/10.[7]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times in 1991, thought that the film was an "assemblage of turbulent images" and "is a peculiar blend of reflectiveness and fury". It "has a burning, kaleidoscopic energy" and "genuineness and pathos of Mr. Jarman's own situation".[5]

• Time Out review of The Garden
• The Garden at IMDb