CARAVAGGIO

Italy, 1610. The early Baroque painter Caravaggio is wanted for murder and has been on the run for four years. He is dying and being cared for by his young apprentice, John Jerusaleme, a deaf mute who Caravaggio took in as a boy. Caravaggio narrates episodes of his life, and muses on his approaching death. (...) The dramatic intensity of lived experience threatens to overtake Caravaggio when he meets the young brawler, Ranuccio (played with Cockney relish by Sean Bean) and his lover, Lena (one of Tilda Swinton's best performances for Jarman). A messy love triangle ensues and Caravaggio is wounded rather symbolically in the side by Ranuccio in a fight. Jarman's anachronistic elements, such as the sound of a train, a typewriter or a magazine, keep the themes eternal rather than historical, and add another texture of the lived experience Jarman brings to his artistic practice. (Cherry Smyth)