#the final programme

[mellomymind]

The Final Programme (1973)

Directed by Robert Fuest

[trobairitzdedia]

Idk how to explain why, but this paragraph reads like Jerry Cornelius is about to throw his hair up in a messy bun and get sold to One Direction

[cantsayidont]

February 1978. Released a year after the royal Silver Jubilee to which the title alludes, this colorful, moderately surreal, definitely pretentious Derek Jarman punk indulgence is framed by an odd sequence in which an angel (Ian Charleson) gives Queen Elizabeth I (Jenny Runacre) and John Dee (Richard O'Brien) a glimpse of the future, where a group of young punks — Amyl (Pamela Rooke, aka Jordan), Crabs (Little Nell, aka Nell Campbell, who could have convincingly played Helen Mirren's younger sister), Viv (Linda Spurrier), Mad (Toyah Willcox), Sphinx (Karl Johnson), Angel (Ian Charleson), and Kid (Adam Ant), along with the somewhat older and decidedly mad Bod (also Runacre) — struggle with end-of-the-world ennui and boredom that they try to fill with looting, sex, music (produced by the deranged Borgia Ginz, played by Jack Birkett, aka Orlando), mindless aggro, and the occasional recreational murder. (The story doesn't ever spell out exactly why the world is ending, but anyone living in the gloomy inflationary austerity of late '70s Britain hardly needed any elaboration on that score.)

Even if you don't recognize the various punk and New Wave figures who appear throughout, the film captures the early punk sensibility pretty well, although for all its mayhem, its aura of studied disaffection makes it rather slow-moving and occasionally dull. This seems intentional — the characters themselves are desperately bored, and while everyone's still going through the motions out of inertia or nostalgia, the point is that there is no point.

For all that, JUBILEE is still significantly less cynical than the later LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE FABULOUS STAINS (which also features an array of punk stars), and occasionally manages to seem strangely wistful. CONTAINS LESBIANS? There's a fair amount of gay sex, but the closest it gets to wlw is a scene where Bod and Mad do a little knife-play. VERDICT: Definitely an acquired taste, but if you have any interest in punk, New Wave, or post punk, it's essential viewing. As a companion piece, try the somewhat earlier THE FINAL PROGRAMME (also with Jenny Runacre), based on Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novel, which is similar in tone and sensibility.

[where-your-eyes-dont-go]

A lot of classic "psycedelic" media has an odd relationship with trans characters, where their existence is seen as inherently funny or ridiculous even if the characters themselves aren't necessarily portrayed negatively. Little Miss Dazzle from Moorcock's The Final Programme is a good example of this:

She isn't made out to be a sex-crazed villain or a confused dunce or anything like that, she isn't given anything in the way of negative traits. But she only comes up in the context of "oh its funny that people don't know she has a dick."

It's an oddity, though it seems in like with Moorcock's tendency in Programme to treat anything that isn't an Englishman's idea of "normal" as inherently trippy and surreal. A long list of the oddball attendies to Cornelius' parties include things like "Persian lesbians" and "a hunchback veterinarian" gets listed out with "warlocks" and "monks from disbanded monasteries." And that's not to mention Cornelius going from a white dude with black hair in the first book to a black dude with white hair in the second book as part of the whole "variations on a theme" thing the books are doing.

[retroillustrates]

Jerry

[ssallamander]

It's gonna make you run

Needle needle, needle needle gun

It's gonna make you run

Needle needle, needle needle gun

[biggeorgeous]

The Final Programme (1973)

[ozu-teapot]

The Final Programme | Robert Fuest | 1973