Goya's Ghosts (2006)

Goya’s Ghosts, directed by Milos Forman and starring Stellan Skarsgard, Javier Bardem, and Natalie Portman, is a film about the famous painter Francisco Goya, the Spanish Inquisition, and the French “liberation” of Spain. It is a film centered on the political turmoil occurring during Spain in this time period.

At the center of the politics occurring in Spain, Francisco Goya [Stellan Skarsgard] plays a man who is at peace with himself among all the turmoil. Viewers see everything from Goya’s perspective, which proved to be very interesting. He paints with an honest eye; for instance, in the queen’s portrait, he makes her appear even more homely than she actually is. When commissioned to paint a portrait for a young Catholic priest, Father Lorenzo [Javier Bardem], Goya sees straight through the pretense of the priest. Lorenzo is a man pitted against his own nature; viewers can witness the struggle with power and his own impulses. Goya recognizes this inner turmoil in Lorenzo; likewise, Lorenzo admires Goya for his talent and peace. Together they are a great contrast in the film, much like in the larger context, the turmoil occurring in their country.

From the struggles Lorenzo faces against himself, the pain fell on the innocent, Natalie Portman’s character, Ines Bilbatua, daughter of a wealthy merchant. She was wrongly accused of being Jewish by the Inquisition, who forced a confession from her during the torture process noted “The Question.” A confession obtained via this torture process was considered absolute truth. A very good scene was when Ines’s father put Lorenzo to “The Question” to prove that his daughter’s confession was coerced, causing Lorenzo to sign a confession that he was the bastard son of an orangutan. However, Ines remained in prison for 15 long years. Her freedom only was granted when Napoleon and his armies stopped the Inquisition. She emerges from the jail haggard with a jaw disease, which makes Portman talk out of the side of her mouth. It results in tremendous acting, for Portman has to play the naïve, innocent muse of Goya’s in the first section of the film, then she plays a decrepit woman overtaken by a hard life in prison and the loss of a child [Father Lorenzo’s child], and then Ines’s young daughter who is a harlot.

Goya's Ghosts served to express to viewers this tumultuous time in Spain; it is effective in doing this through the perspective of Goya.