Diagonaldi Very well executed

Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

VeteranLight I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

cbmunchkin I have never heard of this film, never heard of this director, but a friend shoved a VHS copy in my hand and said, "WATCH THIS!" After watching it, I am still spellbound enough to comment on it.While I can't say I will bow down in awe to Saura, I was certainly captivated by his work with this film. GOYA is a glimpse into the artist's influences, his fears, and his feelings; it is a glimpse into the artistic process. I found Goya's journey fascinating, and I especially appreciated the non-linear storytelling approach. Rather than barreling through a series of events that define WHY Goya is the way he is and why he painted the way he did, the audience is, in effect, putting together the pieces of a big emotional puzzle. And how the puzzle fit together or didn't fit together was really what kept me enthralled for two and half hours. Anyone interested in art should pick up this film.

ss3 The photography is admittedly fascinating as is the dance and music, but the movie is very talkey and with no sustaining plot it soon seems clautrophobic and dull. Occasionally their are scenes outside which comes as truly a breath of fresh air. True this is supposed to be about Goya dying, but there is little drama in that since it is a foregone conclusion.

wulfric A brilliantly rich expression of the medium of painting through that of the cinema, a rare if not a unique achievement. Another reviewer refers to the "moving painting" of Peter Greenaway, and this film does indeed call to mind The Draughtsman's Contract. The dying painter relives in pictorial terms episodes of his life, artistic, political and personal, in between asking himself the questions "Where am I?" ("¿Donde estoy?"), lost in the streets of Bordeaux at the beginning of the film, and "Who am I now?" ("¿Quién soy ahora?"), as he lies on his death-bed, the two Spanish verbs distinguishing between the physical being and the existential one. The film is articulated to a large degree by Goya's three sources of inspiration, Velázquez (space), Rembrandt (light) and the imagination, but more by Goya's apocalyptic portrayals of the suffering of the Spanish in the Napoleonic Wars after the disillusionment of the French Enlightenment. Goya en Burdeos is to painting what Babettes Gæstebud and The Dead are to the celebratory feast.

Paul Creeden I do not know the price tag for this film, but my guess is that they could have used more dough. The Napoleonic Wars are hard to do on a budget. Tableau representations of Goya's works were charming. They went on too long and the acting added in was pure ham. The whole thing seemed a disjointed mess to me. I was reminded of Ken Russell's "The Music Lovers" in which Richard Chamberlain has a poetic delirium from typhus. Goya was obviously an accomplished political artist, yet the film portrays him as a narcissistic bumbler. As an American, I was impressed with all the overtly sentimental sexism and ageism at the heart of the movie. Old men obviously all dote and drool. Young granddaughters obviously grin and bear it. Wink. Wink. It was all too wholesome to be surreal and too surreal to be taken seriously as history. I had great hopes for it, but I was disappointed.