Caravaggio's Shadow is a fever dream of a film, vividly photographed and convincingly played by an (unsurprisingly) handsome Italian cast.
There's plenty of melodrama, but it's an Italian period piece; anything less would have felt restrained.
At the heart of it is an irresolvable contradiction: the Vatican and papacy are the immensely rich and powerful core of Catholicism, but Catholicism is anchored by the teachings of Jesus, friend of the poor, the outcast and the desperate. What happens when the Vatican's most talented painter - a devout genius - uses the poor, the disgraced, and the outcasts of society as his subjects in seeking the truth of scripture?
Expect plenty of debauchery, plenty of on-location renaissance architecture, some intrigue, and even some swashbuckling swordfighting.
Worth your time.
