Goya's Ghosts (2007)

It's 1792 Madrid. The Inquisition is interested in painter Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgård)'s provocative art. Luckily for him, brother Lorenzo Casamares (Javier Bardem) is his supportive patron. Inés Bilbatúa (Natalie Portman) is brought into the Inquisition for not eating pork. She is accused of being a Judaiser and put into a stress position called The Question. Her rich merchant father asks Goya to invite Lorenzo for dinner. He in turn puts Lorenzo into The Question to coerce an outlandish confession. He blackmails Lorenzo to help get Inés released.The first hour is terrific. It has dark and tense turns. The characters are great. It builds up a compelling drama. The first problem starts with the family letting Goya leave as they torture Lorenzo. He could easily have gone to the authorities. It's a small logic break but then the story expands in scope and out of shape. This could have been a great movie if it stayed small. Milos Forman goes crazy and then the French invades. The second half is more convoluted and there are too many convenient turns. By way of explaining, I almost half-believed in this as a real Goya story. Granted, I don't know anything about the artist but these characters seem real enough. By the second half, there is no chance that this is anywhere near reality. This is half of a great movie.

The acting and production values are of the highest order in "Goya's Ghost". Because I don't get around much anymore, I had not seen Ms Portman in a movie until "Ghost", and was very impressed, for like all the roles in this movie, her's was challenging. Javier Bardem is tough to equal in any movie, and as the 'heavy', (another heavy?!) he is outstanding; Stellan Skarsgård has come a long, long ways since "The Ox", and he has had a mixture of roles, some of them pretty thankless. As Goya, he does very well--a great actor. Natalie Portman--as I was a first timer regards seeing her work, I was bowled over--her role requires a terrible transformation, and makeup only goes so far, acting must be the key ingredient. So, along with the outstanding set designs and production values, Forman created another outstanding period piece. By the way, the actress Blanca Portillo who does the Spanish queen has a key small part--and you'll know her best scene when you see it! The story? It is about a wretched time and wretched people in a position of trust who violate that and prey on whomever they can. I think "Ghost" might not be for those who are not really into period pieces, but I am!

I was so impressed by this monumental film that even now, the day after watching it, It's still in my mind. Milos Forman must be one of the great directors on record in the history of movie-making.To me, this is a masterpiece, a flawed one, if we consider the language used in it (English) spoken by the different actors with different accents and some of them too strong (Bardem's) to make the character believable, specially when one was accustomed to see that actor acting in his native tongue and his self-consciousness to dominate the accent is evident, almost painful to hear, like seeing somebody walking on exceedingly high heels when not yet fully accustomed to them.But we can consider that a minor matter and at the same time appreciate that the actor made a considerable effort to learn his dialogue in a language foreign to him.Letting aside this minor objection, this film is an incredible jewel. Everything in it has been done impeccably and the story line is so forceful that absorbs one mind from the very beginning without letting go till the very end (the very end of the credits!!!).The film opens with jaw dropping drawings by Goya and ends the same way. After seeing this gallery of incredible artwork, one thinks that Goya must be the greatest painter on Earth from the beginning of times till tomorrow. Just looking at these pictures is worth the sitting time in front of the screen.The way the Spanish Inquisition conducted its deeds makes it a wonder to see that the catholic church is still going on, since they were no different in their conduct throughout all the centuries they ruled the coop, to Hitler and his crimes during the Twentieth Century. But obviously the human brain is wired in ways still unknown to us.I truly regret that this movie wasn't done in Spanish, because that took away the full flavor that Spain, one of the most colorful countries in all the World, could have enhanced its atmosphere enormously, and the proof we have it here and there, when we hear some exclamations shout in Spanish in the background and devastatingly so at the very end, when that last scene is accompanied by street children singing off camera a popular children's song in Spanish. All of a sudden the film becomes a 3D picture, now round and complete. We would experiment the same if a Shakespearean work was done in Spanish or Polish, or in any other language but English.Language authenticity is primordial for certain works, I remember seeing "The Barefoot Contessa" in a Barcelona's movie-house and when Ava Gardner (A Spanish Gypsy Girl???!!!) said, in a very heavily accented Spanish: ¿Qué hace usted aquí, no tiene derecho a entrar..." well, it was impossible to hear the whole phrase because the collective laughter from the audience drowned the rest of it."Los fantasmas de Goya", a Masterpiece.

What a disappointment it was to learn that one of my favourite directors, Milos Forman, would go to Spain where animal cruelty laws do not apply and would exploit that loophole to abuse and kill animals for our entertainment.A chicken is trampled by horses, a real animal carcass is thrown into a field so that vultures can be shot, horses are abused and in obvious distress. And unlike civilized countries where this can all be done with special effects and animatronics, Forman took the cheap route and caused harm and death to actual living creatures."The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by how well it treats its animals." ~M.K. GandhiSpain, you blew it.Milos, you blew it.I realize that there are those among you who do not care about real animals being killed or abused in films. That is your prerogative. But I, for one, wish someone had warned me before I wasted my money on this. In case there are others out there who feel the same way, this is your warning. Do an IMDb keyword search on "actual-animal-killed" if you want to know what other films to avoid. Hint: if it was filmed in Spain, Mexico, USA pre-1965, Korea, Philippines or China, you can bet the animal cruelty/killing on screen was real.