Whilst most of the British (and in fact worldwide) cinema at his time was based on spoken dialogues and a more or less well worked out plot, Jarman refused to work in this tradition and used a unique visual form of communication.

He often addressed the social and political situation of the day, but in quite a different way than the famous Ealing comedies or Tony Richardson, co-founder of the Woodfall studios and one of the protagonists of the British New Wave of Cinema ("A Taste of Honey", "Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner"): in many of Jarman's productions his vivid interest in English history shines through when he compares the past with the present. Plus, Jarman never seemed to be too keen to focus on the everyday life of lower class people, as Woodfall- and Ealing-productions would.

Jarman always had to work on a very low budget, but he made the best of the financial situation: most of his productions were done with the support of a close circle of friends. This way, he did not have to follow the trodden paths of the established film industry. He had always mocked commercial and mainstream cinema, and this attitude is strongly reflected in his stunningly strong visual language.

Many of Jarman's films lack dialogues at all, but feature a strong musical soundtrack instead. Thus has Jarman brought a certain silence to the cinema - a silence that is not calm however, but moving and strong. Jarman's one-of-a-kind techniques create a very strange and eerie atmosphere, for example in his deeply narcissistic masterpiece "The Angelic Conversation".

This film features stop-motion scenes, grave imagery of desolated rocks and the wild coastal landscape of Dorset, and gentle, almost platonical, homoerotic love action. Some have described Jarman's technique and imagery as resembling the work of a painter, mixing colours and unusual effects to create an artistic unity.

For "The Angelic Conversation", Jarman filmed with a stop-motion camera, then put the scenes to screen and re-recorded from there, thus creating a multi-layered and dream-like aestheticism. The whole film resembles a home movie, dramatized by the slow and eerie recitation of sonnets by Shakespeare. The music for this film was mainly written by musical counterparts John Balance and Peter Christopherson, also known as Coil, who used repetitive and stark elements to support the visual statement.
 
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"Angelic Conversation" featured music by Coil