Goya's Ghosts

Wigs and accents. "Goya's Ghosts" is like an ersatz "Girl with a Pearl Earring," a film about a painter and his paintings. Except this movie isn't about Goya as much as it is about Father Lorenzo (Javier Bardem), who had a thing for the girl who was the inspiration for some of Goya's paintings. And in Spain in 1792, with the Inquisition and all, you can except things were not pretty, especially if you were suspected of being a Judaizer.

There are signs the filmmaker tried to tie the subject matter into modern times, to make it relevant. For instance, there's talk of confessions obtained by torture -- after someone has been put to "The Question" -- and how reliable they are. Hmm, are we making a statement about US policy during the War on Terror? But I don't think that during the Inquisition, regular people would be ready to grill a Father about the Church practices and criticize it. In another part echoing recent events, when the French Revolution spreads to Spain, the invading army thinks they'll be greeted with flowers and kisses because the people hate their royal family, since it comprises a king who's the cousin of the recently decapitated French king and a queen who is Italian. So the people will greet their liberators with open arms. Not so much.

But for being about Goya, the film never shows what made him such a rara avis. The Church did not like his paintings, but that could have been explored more. The only biographical detail you learn about him was that he was deaf when he aged. If you want to learn about Goya, you have to wait until they make a film based on Robert Hughes's biography.