The first and only film shot entirely in subtitled Latin, Sebastiane is Derek Jarman's first work as a director (though he shared the job with the less well-known Paul Humfress) and is a strange combination of gay nudie movie, pocket-sized Ancient Roman epic and meditation upon the image of Saint Sebastian. It opens with the Lindsay Kemp dance troupe romping around with huge fake phalluses to represent the Ken Russell-style decadence of the court of the Emperor Diocletian in AD 303, then decamps to Tuscany as Diocletian's favourite guard Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio)... is demoted to ordinary soldier and dispatched to a backwater barracks because the Emperor (Robert Medley) suspects him of being a covert Christian. The bulk of the film consists of athletic youths in minimal thongs romping around the countryside, soaking themselves down between bouts of manly horseplay or sylvan frolic. It all comes to a bad end as the lecherous but guilt-ridden commanding officer Severus (Barney James) fails to cop off with Sebastian and instead visits floggings and tortures upon his naked torso, finally ordering his men to riddle the future saint with arrows, thus securing him a place in cultural history. The public schoolboy cleverness of scripting dialogue in Latin--a popular soldier's insult is represented by the Greek "Oedipus"--works surprisingly well, with the cast reeling off profane Roman dialogue as if it were passionate Italian declarations rather than marbled classical sentences. The film suffers from the not-uncommon failing that the best-looking actor is given the largest role but delivers the weakest performance: Treviglio's Sebastian is a handsome cipher, far less interesting than the rest of the troubled, bullying, awkward or horny soldiers in the platoon. Peter Hinwood, famous for the title role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, can be glimpsed in the palace orgy. The countryside looks as good as the cast, and Brian Eno delivers an evocative, ambient-style score. --Kim Newman [show more]
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Derek Jarman's first feature film, set nearly 17,000 years ago and spoken entirely in Latin, .is an account of the Catholic saint, Sebastiane. He is portrayed as a Roman soldier who is sent to the middle of nowhere with his small platoon; the account shows what a bored bunch of soldiers might get up to...
Derek Jarman's debut feature film created a firestorm of controversy over its frank portrayal of homosexuality, violence, and the ultimate martyrdom of the Catholic saint Sebastiane in 303 A.D. A visually striking fantasy, SEBASTIANE begins at the court of Emperor Diocletian in an unforgettable sequence of Roman excess and Bacchanalian sexuality. Similar in tone to the opening sequence to Ken Russell's THE DEVILS, which Jarman designed in 1971, the film is also reminiscent of the orgiastic fantasies of Federico Fellini's SATYRICON and Cecil B. DeMille's THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. (Jarman was conscious of these similarities--a Roman soldier in the film, dreaming of the golden era of Rome, mentions "Cecilli Mille" and "Phillistini's Satyricon.") Accused of standing up for a Christian, Sebastiane (Leonardo Treviglio), friend of the emperor and captain of his guard, is demoted to mere soldier and banished from Rome to a coastal outpost. This remote place proves to be both a barren wasteland and an oasis of freedom where the men are free to act out homosexual fantasies and explore their hidden desires. However, Sebastiane angers outpost captain Severus by ignoring his sexual advances and devoting himself to God. Their ongoing battle erupts in a violent and stunningly homoerotic execution. Jarman's striking work is acted in Latin with English subtitles and features music by Brian Eno.
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