Consider, for a moment, the cupboard — maybe in the spirit of irreverence we should term it a closet — in which, for 30-odd years, lay undisturbed the footage that future star cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (“Atonement,” “Die, My Love”) shot behind the scenes of Derek Jarman‘s 1991 movie “Edward II”. Consider then, the opening of that closet and the discovery of what it contained. For a certain type of cinephile, spooling through those rushes for the first time and realizing that they essentially open up a wormhole to the past as lived in the present tense, it must have been like finding Narnia, with Jarman a puckish, charming, proudly queer Aslan.
Theo Rollason, director of the resulting documentary “Queer Edward II” is clearly that certain type of cinephile; they understand innately the value of this trove of material, and makes the smart decision to, as much as possible, get out of its way. There are no retrospective interviews with talking heads reminiscing about the good-bad old days, even though, given the many luminaries credited as executive producers who would doubtless have participated if asked, the temptation must have been great. That’s not to say nothing at all is added to this fiercely affectionate on-the-fly portrait of the New Queer Cinema pioneer. While shaping McGarvey’s material into a fluid, fast-paced narrative alongside co-editor Nicole Hálová with input from editing maven Joe Bini, Rollason also folds in carefully chosen contemporaneous footage.
