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Edward II
Dir.: Derek Jarman | 90 minutes

Edward II

UK 1991 | 90 minutes | English | Hebrew subtitles

Edward II, the youthful king of England, preferred his young male lover to his queen and political responsibilities. "Edward II" was written by Christopher Marlowe - the great playwright, a notorious atheist, and an avowed homosexual, who died in a tavern before he was 30. His play serves as an excellent starting point for Jarman when defying the extreme conservatism - political and sexual - that characterized English society even in the early 1990s. The entire film was shot in a studio while preserving the fragrance of the Elizabethan theater and utilizing the stock of cinematic ammunition stored in the bag of one of the most original filmmakers in European cinema at the end of the previous millennium. The line someone once wrote about another of his films - "Every frame is a knockout" - is by all accounts fitting for "Edward II".