Director Milos Forman fills the screen with a montage of Francisco Goya’s grotesque paintings, both at the beginning and at the end, but between the artistic bookends is a very odd story, though Goya in Bordeaux (2000) is a more accurate portrayal of the famous artist. Chronologically, the film begins with Spain reviving the Spanish Inquisition in 1792 to suppress rumblings emerging from the French Revolution of 1789. Some fifteen years later, Napoleon’s armies conquer and occupy Spain to bring the universalistic “rights of man” in the form of governmental repression and debauchery by soldiers. The Duke of Wellington invades in 1812, driving the French from Spain by 1814, and the Spanish monarchy is restored. During the entire chaotic period an uncharacteristic apolitical, asexual Goya (played by Stellan Skarsgård) depicts the horror on his sketchpads. The fictional story focuses on Ines (played by Natalie Portman), an innocent girl who is tortured and even raped by opportunist priest-cum-quisling Lorenzo (played by Javier Bardem). But the parallel between France’s conquest of Spain and America’s takeover of Iraq teaches a profound lesson, as the endgame is a restoration of tyranny after the hypocritical occupiers are driven out. MH
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