Cherries Jubilee for dessert?

"Don't dream it, be it. ....In those days desires weren't allowed to become realities, so fantasy was substituted for them, films, books, pictures, they called it, 'Art'. But when your desires become reality you don't need fantasy any longer, or art."



I've changed my mind. I'm going to be Amyl Nitrate next Halloween. Derek Jarman's Jubilee was in my Netflix queue (but far low on the list) and it just so happened that Color Scribble had a bootlegged copy of it at her house today so I just popped it in the player. Wow. Why haven't I seen this earlier in my life, like say when I was in my late teens, when I was discovering The Slits and the Riot Grrrls were my unmitigated heroines? Why was I not informed of this most important movie about formidable punk girls, about absolute beauty and destruction of apocalyptic Britain, about music(!!!), about alienation of all sorts (my sorts) and about rebellion in the face of an economic downward spiral (kinda like today no?).

While watching Jubilee, it reminded me of Godard's La Chinoise which I watched late last month. I really feel that these two films are connected together somehow, a mouthpiece for each decade, 70s and 60s respectively. There are the political graffitied slogans, the didactic dialogue, absurd historical (& fatalistic) context, and of course, the favored witty irony. Is that perhaps the reason why I'm so attracted to Amyl Nitrate? That she perhaps could be a character straight out of a Godard film?

"Scum. That's commercial. It's all they deserve."