"Made virtually without exteriors for a mere $600,000, Caravaggio (is) admirably straightforward, but elusive and dreamy nonetheless. Set in a milieu of gamblers and prostitutes, the film evokes the fantasies of rough trade to which the artist supposedly subscribes and then transcends. Jarman's Caravaggio (Nigel Terry) is a cheeky Cockney-Jarman uses vocal class distinctions throughout-but he's ultimately less a character than a vehicle for a series of extraordinary tableaux that reconstruct the original paintings using the dramatic chiaroscuro that Caravaggio pioneered. Jarman has acknowledged the influence of Godard's Passion as well as that of the seminal Schroeter on this film, but its sense of the painter's process as being not unlike the film director's is uniquely his. This is the first of Jarman's features to transcend its gimmick; it seems in every sense to be a labor of love." J. Hoberman, Village Voice