Derek Jarman’s movies rarely failed to incorporate some level of homo-eroticism. It comes as little surprise then, to learn that he described The Angelic Conversation as the work that most closely reflected his own heart.

In essence it’s little more than a sequence of beautiful young men in various states of undress interacting with each other. As they do so, Judi Dench reads a series of Shakespearean sonnets and a sombre soundtrack plays in the background.

Being a Jarman production there’s lots of meaningful looks (and often meaningless actions), tastefully framed images and monochrome photography throughput. For those who know about and appreciate the works of Jarman it doubtless has much to say about life, love and lots of others things.

Shirtless boys failing to enjoy a good wrestle

For philistines such as myself it’s a collection of hard-faced pretty boys going through the motions of interacting with each other whilst looking like they’re hating every minute of it!

For a film that goes to so much effort to present a range of beautiful young men, it seems strangely devoid of homo-eroticism. My guess is that it’s overly focused on the cerebral at great cost to the sensual. If you need to think that much about the ‘meaning’ of physical pleasure then you must surely get a bit distracted from the actual practice!

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xdmq4l_the-angelic-conversation-1985_shortfilms