"Relentlessly narcissistic, repetitive, head-ache inducing... mindbendinglyself-indulgent." Derek Jarman's latest film has been swamped with a tide of homophobic hate from critics; its controversy has disguised its modest intentions and sensitive address. Behind the poison-pen pans there's a uniquely critical movie struggling to be seen.

The Last of England is a non-narrative collage on Britain today. It has twice the energy and bite of My Beautiful Laundrette, and none of the story. Jarman divides his movie into three strands, starting with seductive black-and-white shots of himself at home in London, trying to sum up his feelings about being gay and being an outsider in Britain today. This is intercut with a home movie scrapbook of his wartime childhood, a homosexual Hope and Glory in which the sentimental colors-his mother's blue and white print dress, the red chrysanthemums­ contrast with his acid hindsight.

In the film's most controversial section, Jarman arranges a series of angry tableaux: Tilda Swinton tears her wedding dress, dock­ side, in an amazing parody of the Royal Wedding; a soldier and his lover fuck on top of the Union Jack. It's like an issue of The Face re-designed by Kenneth Anger.

Undoubtedly, The Last of England is a diffi­cult movie if you're not prepared for its innova­ tive structure, but what's exciting is the meeting between Jarman's two personas: the shocking surrealist who made Sebastiane and Jubilee, and the newly despairing don't-get­ even-get-mad didacticist. If there's ever an ad for the contradictions and attractions of late-eighties Britain, this is it.