Caravaggio

Hugely significant to Jarman, his biopic of the Italian Baroque painter with whom he strongly identified was developed over many years. Ultimately shot on 35mm film, it looks incredible: the tableaux and sets project rich, painterly depth, brightness and colour. Sean Bean and Tilda Swinton deliver fine performances as the model and partner caught up in a complex and fatally doomed love triangle with the famous artist. Caravaggio struggles to reconcile the demands of authority (in the form of his church patrons) with his own artistic and sexual needs a tension then very close to Jarman's heart. (British Film Institute (BFI))