Almost completely missing from the film are any other humans. With very few exceptions, some kids sat on a wall and a distant car, Jarman is uninterested in them and is instead documenting their absence and their detritus, his footage showing a land existing outside of humanity, a timeless landscape still potentially recognisable to those near mythical builders.
A Journey to Avebury was originally presented as a silent film but following Jarman's death in 1994 Coil, who had contributed music to several of his films ("The Angelic Conversation" and "Blue"), were asked to provide a soundtrack to accompany screenings of the film. For this they chose a distinctly electronic soundtrack filled with rolling, burbling tones contrasted by a spattering of birdsong.
The film quality and the colour palette give the film the quality of a hazily distorted memory - defining the distorted snapshot aesthetic of the hauntology movement some forty odd years in advance - and both filmaker and musicians play games with our perceptions as both images and sound are filled with motion yet both evoke a sense of stillness; the frozen moment of an extended dawn.
We are indebted to Phil Barrington for his fabulous remaster of the poor quality copies that have long circulated online.
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