Song of the Day: “blood red blood” by Good Luck at the Gunfight

Goya’s Ghosts

Director: Milos Forman
Genre: Drama
Year: 2006

The movie is called, Goya’s Ghosts….not Francisco Goya. This is important because you do not want to walk into this movie like I did, expecting the story about Francisco Goya and instead getting the story of other people who are unfortunately less interesting and incredibly tormented. Perspective, in this matter, can make a big difference on your view of this movie.

Set in 1792, during the years of the Spanish inquisition, we are introduced to young Ines (Natalie Portman; V for Vendetta, The Other Boleyn Girl), Francisco Goya’s (Stellan Skarsgård; Angels & Demons, Mama Mia!) muse and friend, who is erroneously labeled by the Church’s watchdogs as a heretic. Their proof? She failed to eat pork, which ‘clearly’ signified that she was practicing the Jewish ways of her ancestors. In speedy fury, the church summons the girl to the Holy Office and has her arrested and put to “the question”.

“The question” – in the context of this movie – is the stripping and cuffing of your hands behind your back, then your bindings are attached to a rope overhead and your are lifted in that fashion while you are questioned about your heretic ways, to which of course any person will confess in order to avoid the pain. For this reason, Ines confesses to being that which she is accused of, a move that prompts her father to take action in order to rescue her.

Pessimism is the cloud that lingers over this film from beginning to end. The Church is depicted for the worst of its actions, painted in extremely cruel, hypocritical and radically extremist in its conservative values. The Spanish nation as a whole is shown as power hungry and arrogant, on the part of the bourgeois and mindless on the part of the commoners that buy into the mass mentality. The French as shown as liberators that topple one evil and bring their own, in the form of pillage, rape and unrestrained authority in the name of liberty. The British as shown as rescuers from the French but no better than their predecessors, claiming women like property and taking over the land like any imperialist nation. All of this has an element of truth in it, no doubt, but it has been done so thoroughly and without balance that it almost seems shocking for the sake of being shocking. Aside from Goya and Ines, there is not a single likable character here, even those whose actions we can understand opt to use questionable measures of vengeance (however clever it might have been) and Goya himself is not always shown in the best of light either.

That there is not a single merciful priest, or intelligent Spanish aristocrat, or a truly logical Frenchman, or a righteous Englishman begins to show the level of one-sidedness that this film took. This, however, brings us back to the issue of the title, which is, once again, Goya’s Ghosts. Further consideration of this two words utilized, beg for the opportunity to further examine what the director might have had in mind. Anybody who is familiar with Goya’s prints is likely aware of the romantic, tragic, often disturbing works the artist created. Pain, anguish and human discord are topics that are shown throughout his works, etched darkly on the suffering faces of his subjects. If the artist saw his world for the pain that surrounded him, for the atrocities committed around him, for the injustices that seemed to prevail society…then we have some sort of justification for a film that is this extreme in its content. Given that argument, I am more willing to accept it for what it is.

Tragic to the very end, this film is interesting in the way it collects the worst of people and puts them all together in a semi-jumbled manner which is not great, but not horrible either. There is – it must be said – a powerful set of performances by both Natalie Portman and Javier Bardem as Father Lorenzo to give this film a bit of artistic leverage that can definitely be appreciated. A viewer that goes in knowing they are watching a skewed work of fiction can appreciate the message for what it is and learn to balance it with reality on their own. Those who do not, might end up being somewhat misguided in the information they take out of this.

Rating:
Comment: Brief nudity, mild language, torture scenes and graphic imagery. Adult content, for sure.
Quote: Goya: I am painter to the king!
Asylum Director: So what, I have three Napoleon Bonapartes in here, and two of them are Arabs.