War Requiem Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

Superb Cinematic experience

The new digitally re-mastered HD print of WAR REQUIEM is 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.

Conceived at the close of the Cold War, in a Post-Falklands and Thatcherite climate WAR REQUIEMS 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.

A superb cinematic experience.