Arguably experimental filmmaker/pioneering AIDS activist/general genius Derek Jarman’s best known feature length work (one could easily make a good case for Caravaggio), Jubilee transports Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre, The Passenger) 400 years into the future via the machinations of John Dee, played here by Rocky Horror creator Richard O’Brien - fittingly enough as he’s the one who taught us to do the Time Warp, after all - into a mid-‘70s Britain steeped in punk nihilism.

Naturally, hijinx ensue. Weird, meandering hijinx.

Jordan in her pearls and cashmere cardigan

Era underground icons like Toyah Wilcox, Wayne County, Adam Ant, mime artist Lindsay Kemp, Jordan (AKA Pamela Rooke, one-time shop assistant at Malcolm McClaren and Vivienne Westwood’s SEX boutique and briefly Adam Ant’s manager), The Slits and O’Brien’s former Rocky Horror colleague “Little” Nell Campbell serve in the cast, and the soundtrack features most of the foregoing, plus Siouxsie and The Banshees and Brian Eno. The film has had a typically fantastic Criterion release, and as such, it’s available for viewing on HuluPlus. Or, if you like, just watch it here, thoughtfully subtitled en español. Or maybe it’s Portugese, what do I know?
 

A distinctly unglamorous Toyah
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:

Original Photo-spread for Derek Jarman’s ‘Jubilee’