I knew there had to be a reason why anyone ever cared about Sean Bean. A more wooden actor I think I've never seen, but here his conniving "Ranuccio" is sexy and provocative and put together with Nigel Terry's convincing performance as the eponymous artist and Dexter Fletcher's efforts as the younger, manipulative, Caravaggio, this is a no-holes barred/bared look at debauchery and hedonism in a papal Italy that was way more interested in sex and depravity than it was upholding the values of Christian decency. Indeed, the closer to the throne of St. Peter one gets the more licentious you seem to need to be. That's ideally epitomised by Nigel Davenport's "Giustiniani" and the under-rated Michael Gough as "Cardinal Del Monte" - now, he really does like to say "yes"! Robbie Coltrane doesn't doesn't quite fit the bill as the scheming "Borghese" though, nor does Tilda Swinton's cheated upon "Lena", but they don't really matter so much as this painter decides to abandon the more traditional, idealistic, style of portraiture and actually draw things warts and all - and boy, there are plenty of warts. Sexual fluidity, nudity, very little left to the imagination - and it all amalgamates to create quite a potent and plausible representation of the do as I say not as I do (high) society that prevailed at the time. It's got a few roots in history, but for the most part it can't really be considered much more than a sexually-charged fantasy from Derek Jarman who takes plenty of artistic licence as he uses just about any excuse to get some fit young men naked and writhing about in a not very subtly photographed fashion. The writing isn't the best, the dialogue is a bit dry but this is very much a visual experience that speculates well about just what drove a man capable of creating masterpieces of world renown amidst poverty and lots of lust. I wonder if Caravaggio really was quite this notorious in real life? If not, I doubt he'd be displeased but this colourful example of excess in just about every form. Not for everyone, and probably not for any serious art historians - but as tangentially fact-based soft gay porn, it sort of works!
