The Wizard of Sapphire City Derek. Derek Jarman. A magician, a sorcerer, an artist, a cursed poet, an open gay man, a man who was always responsible for his words, a director, a preacher of the ancient cult of bodily beauty, a prophet, a demiurge, a man - brave, sincere, alive, real. One of the founders of British avant-garde cinema, the heir to the traditions of Warhol and Russell, the author of one of the first homoerotic films, he, who does not accept compromises in art, knew about the magic of cinema, it seems, everything. Each of his few films is the quintessence of new art, an illusion, an alternate world that communicates with reality but is emphatically unreal. First introduced to the world of cinema with the film “The Wizard of Oz”, he himself became the creator of his own Sapphire city, the wizard of the country “Jarmenia”.
One of the main inhabitants of this country, its central symbol, became a diva, muse, friend - Tilda Swinton. Her poetic recollection monologue opens this documentary, more than just a biopic: I Remember the Sea. I remember the garden. I remember the house. But above all, I remember you, Derek. And she invites us through the waves of her memories to walk around this country.
The monologue is interrupted by fragments of Jarman’s interviews, archival photographs, and shots from his films, creating the effect of a dialogue between the present and the past, more than a decade away. In an interview, Jarman talks about British life in the 70s, about art, culture, religion, homosexuality, recalls meetings with Tennessee Williams and Ken Russell, talks about his childhood, how he perceived and suppressed his sexuality, how he publicly acknowledged his positive HIV status, what persecution he was subjected to after that in the press, but the main content of his speech is cinema and the diversity of love, which is not determined either by human laws or God’s laws. Swinton speaks of her longing for a friend, of his artistic fearlessness for reality, of the spiritual and then cultural and sociopolitical significance Jarman has for her, his contemporaries and future generations.
The fourteen years between Jarman’s death and Derek’s release shrink into seventy minutes of screen time, for not only time and space are relative, but death itself. A living portrait of the human spirit and mind stands before us, and after Tilda Swinton we realize that Jarman is not gone, he is not gone, he is here among us, aliveer than many living. Fun, sincere, frank, he walks in the garden he created and enjoys life. And it does not matter the date of his birth and death, his gender, age, attitude to religion, sexual orientation and lifestyle - the way he thinks and feels embodied in life and cinema is important.