Prior to Goya's Ghosts, I would have given Director Milos Forman's work consistently high ratings; his output includes some of my favorite movies, such as Man on the Moon, Amadeus, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Throw in The People vs. Larry Flynt and you have a series of films that share a common theme: Thoughtful studies of controversial or misunderstood men. With the exception of Amadeus, which had plenty of large and dramatic moments, Forman has mostly painted pictures of his characters by moving in close and remaining quiet. The ending of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - the real ending - is like a sad coda to the big action-and-excitement climax of the movie. The hero is defeated and yet triumphant. Mozart's demise in Amadeus had a similar sad and pointless quality, with no opportunity for Salieri to revel in his "victory." Forman's direction produced characterizations of Larry Flynt and Andy Kaufman that weren't transcendental as much as they were just weird, puzzling men. Intriguing to some but grotesque to others...

Goya's Ghosts is unfortunately a break in the continuum for this viewer and probably many others. Instead of focusing on Goya the man, Forman tries to establish an ensemble cast that revolve around the painter. Set during the horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, this results in something like a cross between Merchant Ivory and Nurse Ratchet. It's awful, really. Nothing suggests this is based on a true account from Goya's life so we can only assume it was staged to symbolize the sad period in which Goya lived and the people that surrounded him at the time. Natalie Portman plays herself... twice. Once as a woman that falls prey to the Inquisition and then as her own daughter. It's a lame device that probably made sense at the time because Portman has that kind of weird woman/girl polymorphism. The worst part is the decision to trot her out of prison after fifteen years looking like a broken old hag. Portman is still Portman under all the makeup; the net effect verges on comedy instead of creating the intended sympathy.

Viewing the horrors of the Inquisition, the French invasion of Spain, and the invasion of French-Spain by England, should create plenty of sympathy. Forman takes a weird turn by spending too much time training the camera on battle scenes, rapes, and other acts of violence. The pain at the personal level is really obscured, especially because the poor visual effects make it impossible to suspend disbelief. Almost everything violent feels gratuitous and made-for-television in comparison to the human drama that is Forman's sweet spot. Portman's first moments on screen as a vulnerable young girl are promising, and Javier Bardem is absolutely brilliant as a snake in a man's clothing. Stellan Skarsgard as Goya is almost lost in the background for most of the movie; what Skarsgard does on screen is nice, but there's not enough of it and the camera is always on the opposite side of the room instead of focused in on Goya's dilemma and horror. If the point of Goya's Ghosts was to suggest that Goya skated along the surface of horrific times, was affected by them, and created some brooding art, we got it. The problem comes from having to slog through so many disjointed scenes with actors that feel miscast in their roles (Randy Quaid as the Spanish King? C'mon... Wilford Brimley was a shoe-in for that role!) and over-the-top violence that does little to advance the case for why Goya was so affected by the period and what prompted him to create many of his singular works. Exploration of those ideas would have made for a much better movie, and seems more like Forman Territory.