01
Querelle
Why this pick
Its deliberately artificial port-city sets, charged male desire and ritualised power struggles echo Sebastiane’s sensuous, confrontational theatricality.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1976 1h 26m GBR
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
Sebastiane
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved Sebastiane, try these.
01
02
Caravaggio
Why this pick
Jarman again turns history into painterly queer reverie, using sculpted bodies, anachronism and intimate tableaux rather than conventional period realism.
03
Teorema
Why this pick
Pasolini’s austere framing and sacred-profane erotic atmosphere make desire feel like a destabilising spiritual force, much as it does in Sebastiane.
04
Fellini Satyricon
Why this pick
A dreamlike antique world of bodily spectacle, pagan ritual and fractured narrative offers a more extravagant counterpart to Sebastiane’s imagined classical past.
05
Edward II
Why this pick
This is Jarman’s fiercer political extension of the same queer historical mode: spare staging, defiant anachronisms and desire under state violence.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
In the fourth century AD, Sebastian is a member of the Emperor Diocletian's personal guard. When he tries to intervene to stop one of the Emperor's catamites from being strangled by one of his bodyguards, Sebastian is exiled to a remote coastal garrison and reduced in rank to private. Although thought to be an early Christian, Sebastian is a worshipper of the Roman sun god Phoebus Apollo and sublimates his desire for his male companions into worship of his deity and pacifism. Both incense Severus, the commanding officer of the garrison, who becomes increasingly obsessed with Sebastian, tries to assault him, and ultimately presides over his summary execution for refusing to take up arms in defence of the Roman Empire. Justin, one of his comrades in arms, is also in love with Sebastian, albeit necessarily unrequited, but he forms a friendship with the stubborn celibate pacifist. Adrian and Anthony, two of Sebastian's fellow soldiers, are gay and in obvious love with one another.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Richard Warwick
Justin
Nell Campbell
Emperor's Guest
Patricia Quinn
Emperor's Guest
Michael Davis
Emperor's Guest
Eric Roberts
Executioner
Jordan Hames
Madame Morgana, Emperor's Guest
Philip Sayer
Emperor's Guest
Christopher Hobbs
Emperor's Guest