Goya's Ghosts

I am recommending Goya's Ghosts, a 2006 drama set around the life of artist Francisco Goya.

Here's what I knew going in: Goya was a Spanish painter. That's it. I was totally unfamiliar with his works, his historical relevance or even time period.

What I liked most about this movie was that it has a very engrossing story and that I learned some stuff too - stuff that I later confirmed to be true.

In Goya's Ghosts Stellan Skarsgard (Pirates of the Caribbean) plays Francisco Goya, chiefly commissioned by the royal family and The Church near the end of the Spanish Inquisition, was skating on thin ice. Goya, it's rumored, was using common whores as models (as ANGELS??!!). Even More alarming to The Church were his drawings of the suffering.

The actual main story in the movie is of the upheaval of Spain: end of the Inquisition, conquest by Napoleon, injustice, civil strife, etc. Goya happens to be caught in the middle and depicts it in his art. Goya had such a remarkable eye for capturing images as is - no bias nor romanticism. And as such he almost becomes the AP photographer of this period.

The best part of the movie is Goya's actual artwork as it's interjected. He was amazing, but I found his drawings of mobs particularly unsettling and oddly beautiful, despite the simplistically.

The acting in this movie is top notch! Natalie Portman (Star Wars Ep I, II & III), Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), Skarsgard and even Randy Quaid are all great! (Quaid actually playes the violin! For real!)

Goya's Ghosts was directed and co-written by Milos Forman, director of Amadeus (a movie he didn't help write). And similarities abound. The music is good in each (better in Amadeus - go figure!). Both are historical fiction. The main -as well as some supporting - characters of both were actual real people of the same time period. Their interaction with each other is where things get fuzzy. And whether or not the things portrayed in the movie actually happened to these real people....even fuzzier.

Watch this! The story, acting and artwork will keep you enthralled.