'The Shadow of the Sun' draws upon Derek Jarman’s interest with alchemical processes as a metaphor for reprocessing Super-8 film. Jarman once described film’s union of light and matter as “an alchemical conjunction” and experimented throughout his career with creating dream symbolism through the superimposition of image and action. Originally called English Apocalypse, the film’s final title is derived from a 17th Century alchemical text that used the phrase as a synonym for the philosopher’s stone – the highly sought substance that turns base metals into gold and silver. The film was intended as a step toward the idea of an ambient video, that like its musical counterpart, was designed to enhance an environment.
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Reviews
To me, this movie is perfection.
One of my all time favorites.
Don't listen to the negative reviews
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
Derek Jarman used some of his 70s home movie footage to produce this wonderful piece of exploitational avantgarde cinema. Actually the original material has been slowed down to a speed of 3-6 frames, then Jarman added colour effects and the pulsating, menacing score by Industrial supergroup Throbbing Gristle ("Hot on the Heels of Love").The result is a piece of art not to dissimilar to Jarman´s painting work in using found footage as elements of memory and mind that resemble ideas reflected in the Cabala and in C.G. Jung`s writings about an archetypical past that is hidden in everyone of us.