This film is a bit of a mixed bag really. It divided people in half-one praising it unreservedly whilst the other deriding it and complaining. Personally, I can understand both aspects but I side with the former group.
The whole film is like a surrealist painting but for me, the most unique scene from an artistic sense was the one in the pub, where Francis Bacon's circle of friends is introduced for the first time to the naive George Dyer. We see people's half-faces amidst a cloud of smoke and groggy reflections of featureless silhouettes on the grubby mirrored bar-front which, to me, was the perfect visual way in which to present the assortment of eccentric libertarians whom Francis Bacon counted among his nearest and dearest.
I've also read so many complaints about the alleged disjointed nature of the scenes, with the second half of the film being peppered with montages of nightmarish surrealist scenarios that George Dyer finds himself in. Well, weren't these scenes part of the character that was Dyer? His insecurities and fears were imbued into the very fabric of his relationship with Bacon and ultimately led to his demise. No disjointedness there. Someone mentioned that Tilda Swinton is almost unrecognisable in this film--unrecognisable yes but brilliant none-the- less.
The film on the whole is less about the two protagonists' lives and more about the nature of a relationship from the perspectives of the two people involved in it. Many found it shameful that Bacon's influence was not shown more or just that one small episode in his life merited a biographical film. But that's just it. This is not a biography. The title states: Love is the Devil: Study for a portrait of Francis Bacon. A portrait, not The portrait. This is an episode which speaks simply about a relationship and the universality of the two perspectives that defined it. The only point of objection I had at the end was the fact that very few people had even heard of the film which is easily one of Daniel Craig's best, not to mention Derek Jacobi.
The whole film is like a surrealist painting but for me, the most unique scene from an artistic sense was the one in the pub, where Francis Bacon's circle of friends is introduced for the first time to the naive George Dyer. We see people's half-faces amidst a cloud of smoke and groggy reflections of featureless silhouettes on the grubby mirrored bar-front which, to me, was the perfect visual way in which to present the assortment of eccentric libertarians whom Francis Bacon counted among his nearest and dearest.
I've also read so many complaints about the alleged disjointed nature of the scenes, with the second half of the film being peppered with montages of nightmarish surrealist scenarios that George Dyer finds himself in. Well, weren't these scenes part of the character that was Dyer? His insecurities and fears were imbued into the very fabric of his relationship with Bacon and ultimately led to his demise. No disjointedness there. Someone mentioned that Tilda Swinton is almost unrecognisable in this film--unrecognisable yes but brilliant none-the- less.
The film on the whole is less about the two protagonists' lives and more about the nature of a relationship from the perspectives of the two people involved in it. Many found it shameful that Bacon's influence was not shown more or just that one small episode in his life merited a biographical film. But that's just it. This is not a biography. The title states: Love is the Devil: Study for a portrait of Francis Bacon. A portrait, not The portrait. This is an episode which speaks simply about a relationship and the universality of the two perspectives that defined it. The only point of objection I had at the end was the fact that very few people had even heard of the film which is easily one of Daniel Craig's best, not to mention Derek Jacobi.
