Caravaggio rock star of Scamarcio and Placido, the couple Castellitto-De Angelis and other 8 films not to be missed at the cinema and in streaming

There is a more controversial and obscure fine artist than Michelangelo Merisi called Caravaggio (1571-1610)? Probably not. And there is a painter who knew better than him to represent and merge, in the splendor of art, the popular soul with the sense of the divine, the brutal march of fate on the forgotten and dispossessed with the highest virtues? In his paintings, thieves become angels, prostitutes turn into madonnas and tramps into noble lords.
Certainly, Caravaggio was not a saint’s shin. Michele Placido treads his hand: «He was a kind of rock star in his time». Riccardo Scamarcio, who plays him, claims to have been inspired by Elvis Presley. Merisi was torment and ecstasy. A contradictory, unlovable man, in open contrast to the religious authorities of his time, a genius of the Renaissance quarrelsome, rebellious, out of control. What once would have been called “a cursed artist”, a prisoner of his obsessions and his nightmares. Wisely, Placido does not seek myth, celebration. Rather, it is done interpreter of a realism that comes to terms with fiction, thus increasing the pop greatness of the character.
Investigate the restless man who with his works he touched the divine in a continuous round trip between hell and heaven. He makes him a sort of director ante litteram seeking truth and absolute. Dig into his talent, in which the moral contradictions of seventeenth-century Italy were reflected, it tells of the passion for women, the strong need for expiation, the iconoclastic fury against the rules drawn up by the Concio di Trento for sacred representations, the meetings with Giordano Bruno and Artemisia Gentileschi. So good (and dangerous) to push Pope Paul V to enlist a pontifical agent, called Ombra (Louis Garrel), to evaluate whether to pardon him following the accusation of killing his rival Ranuccio in a duel and the consequent sentence to be beheaded.
In a single character, therefore, the metaphorical and carnal meanings of the film overlap. Hence, the inner shadow of Caravaggio, his restlessness, his condemnation. Beyond, the shadow of his doublethe inquisitive mastiff who, as in the best religious thrillers, tries to shed light on his evil deeds and to limit his subversive charge.
Placido composes and transfigures. He talks about the blurred boundary between good and evil. It offers a dynamic version of the borderline life of the Great Painter. He delves into the sources of inspiration and creative courage. Author of a performance that with some complacency wants to be a synthesis of “great beauty”, leads a convinced and convincing Scamarcio and a cast of excellent impact. Louis Garrel is the inquisitor moved by the artist’s talent, cold in carrying out the Pope’s orders. Isabelle Huppert plays the Marquise Costanza Colonna. Vinicio Marchioni is the bitter rival, Giovanni Baglione, while a brunette Micaela Ramazzotti gives face (and body) to the lost Lena, whose figure dominates Death of the Virginone of Merisi’s masterpieces now exhibited in the Louvre.

THE SHADOW OF CARAVAGGIO by Michele Placido
(Italy-France, 2022, duration 120 ‘)
with Riccardo Scamarcio, Louis Garrel, Isabelle Huppert, Micaela Ramazzotti, Michele Placido, Vinicio Marchioni, Gianfranco Gallo, Lolita Chammah, Alessandro Haber, Moni Ovadia, Lorenzo Lavia, Brenno Placido
Rating: *** ½ out of 5
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