Curious use of lenses and shallow focus.

Having not watched this film in probabaly 20 years I recorded it of a digial channel recently and at first thought it was a really bad print - several spaghetti westerns shown on the same channel have used abysmal murky prints - however the image quality suddenly improved once the action shifted frm England to the Crimea. I note on the trivia section here that this was intentional! I have to say I am all for directors and DPs trying something different but in this case the strange narrow/shallow focus in many early scenes just looks like really poor workmanship rather than....well...whatever it was supposed to be like. The edges of the frame are often cloudy , distorted and out of focus. The scene with Venessa Redgrave and David Hemmings walking under a canal bridge is entirely blurred. I guess the drector was suggesting something, maybe a misty-eyed, dreamy view of a lost (pre war) England?
The film was a notorious fiancial failure on release and I can't help wondering if this was part of the reason the public just didn't take to it. The first hour just looks badly shot.
Any thoughts on this?