War Requiem reviews
Review by on 22 Sep 2008
Last night’s first screening of the new digitally re-mastered HD print of WAR REQUIEM was totally staggering. Twenty years after the first theatrical release, the astonishing beauty and visceral immediacy of Jarman’s cinematic visualisation of Britten’s oratorio has lost none of its power to deeply move an audience.
Conceived at the close of the Cold War, in a Post-Falklands and Thatcherite climate WAR REQUIEM’s pacifist message is clear. Shown in a different time and completely different context - after the invasion of Iraq and the continued conflict in Afganistan - this is extraordinarily resonant cinema. However, Jarman’s film is much more than merely a political statement. The texture of his highly crafted painterly approach to Wilfred Owen’s poetry, the Latin mass for the Dead, wide landscape shots, and painterly tableau’s set against the naturalism of archive documentary footage of WW1, the bombed out cities of WW2, Vietnam, Angola and Afghanistan – transform and transcend that idea.
With incredible theatrical performances from Laurence Olivier, Tilda Swinton, Nathaniel Parker and Sean Bean, WAR REQUIEM is often compared to a piece of modern silent cinema. Particular highlights are the lingering camera sequences on Tilda Swinton’s Eisensteinian acting style, Jarman’s ironic use of religious iconography and exquisite colour transitions.
The Q&A that followed with producer Don Boyd and Nathaniel Parker offered an incredibly opportunity to the Festival audience to share their insightful and intimate portrait of working with a director of Jarman’s genius.
A superb cinematic experience.
Sarah Pottle, Festival Daily
Last night’s first screening of the new digitally re-mastered HD print of WAR REQUIEM was totally staggering. Twenty years after the first theatrical release, the astonishing beauty and visceral immediacy of Jarman’s cinematic visualisation of Britten’s oratorio has lost none of its power to deeply move an audience.Conceived at the close of the Cold War, in a Post-Falklands and Thatcherite climate WAR REQUIEM’s pacifist message is clear. Shown in a different time and completely different context - after the invasion of Iraq and the continued conflict in Afganistan - this is extraordinarily resonant cinema. However, Jarman’s film is much more than merely a political statement. The texture of his highly crafted painterly approach to Wilfred Owen’s poetry, the Latin mass for the Dead, wide landscape shots, and painterly tableau’s set against the naturalism of archive documentary footage of WW1, the bombed out cities of WW2, Vietnam, Angola and Afghanistan – transform and transcend that idea.
With incredible theatrical performances from Laurence Olivier, Tilda Swinton, Nathaniel Parker and Sean Bean, WAR REQUIEM is often compared to a piece of modern silent cinema. Particular highlights are the lingering camera sequences on Tilda Swinton’s Eisensteinian acting style, Jarman’s ironic use of religious iconography and exquisite colour transitions.
The Q&A that followed with producer Don Boyd and Nathaniel Parker offered an incredibly opportunity to the Festival audience to share their insightful and intimate portrait of working with a director of Jarman’s genius.
A superb cinematic experience.
Sarah Pottle, Festival Daily
Review by on 20 Sep 2008
Similar in its structural approach to Jarman’s THE LAST OF ENGLAND, but greatly contrasting in its stylistic elements, with arguably less-experimental cinematography, WAR REQUIEM is a tribute to soldiers who fought and lost their lives in the war, an anti-chronological retelling of one soldier’s personal wartime experience.
Fiction and documentary archive footage intermingle to create a powerful depiction of a country deep in conflict. The juxtaposition of Wilfred Owen’s poetry and the fear-provoking and poignant choral works of Benjamin Britten truly encapsulate the wartime experience of ‘the people’. This is personal cinema, a memoir of the countless lives lost. WAR REQUIEM reflects Jarman’s love for silent cinema, and Tilda Swinton’s nurse plays out a story where actions must speak louder than words as they become drowned out by an overwhelming soundtrack. The lack of dialogue seems to echo Jarman’s own thoughts; that there are never the right words to retell such tragedy.
Seeing a silent film in full colour is surprisingly haunting; the ideas are so conflicting that an eerie association with death is created, which when coupled with the discordant choral accompaniment of Britten’s work, makes for an all-out terrifying experience. Cinematography is bleak, almost medieval in its appearance. As billowing smoke from an extinguished flame marks the death of yet another soldier, the focus seems to be less visceral, more emotional. As with all Jarman films, WAR REQUIEM is certainly an acquired taste, but for those who embrace it, it will both shock and move them incessantly.
Laura J Smith, Festival Daily
Similar in its structural approach to Jarman’s THE LAST OF ENGLAND, but greatly contrasting in its stylistic elements, with arguably less-experimental cinematography, WAR REQUIEM is a tribute to soldiers who fought and lost their lives in the war, an anti-chronological retelling of one soldier’s personal wartime experience. Fiction and documentary archive footage intermingle to create a powerful depiction of a country deep in conflict. The juxtaposition of Wilfred Owen’s poetry and the fear-provoking and poignant choral works of Benjamin Britten truly encapsulate the wartime experience of ‘the people’. This is personal cinema, a memoir of the countless lives lost. WAR REQUIEM reflects Jarman’s love for silent cinema, and Tilda Swinton’s nurse plays out a story where actions must speak louder than words as they become drowned out by an overwhelming soundtrack. The lack of dialogue seems to echo Jarman’s own thoughts; that there are never the right words to retell such tragedy.
Seeing a silent film in full colour is surprisingly haunting; the ideas are so conflicting that an eerie association with death is created, which when coupled with the discordant choral accompaniment of Britten’s work, makes for an all-out terrifying experience. Cinematography is bleak, almost medieval in its appearance. As billowing smoke from an extinguished flame marks the death of yet another soldier, the focus seems to be less visceral, more emotional. As with all Jarman films, WAR REQUIEM is certainly an acquired taste, but for those who embrace it, it will both shock and move them incessantly.
Laura J Smith, Festival Daily
Film details
War Requiem
DEREK JARMAN: REMEMBERED
Director: Derek Jarman
Actor: Tilda Swinton
Actor: Laurence Olivier
Actor: Tilda Swinton
Actor: Laurence Olivier
UK, 1989.
93 mins. English.
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