Goya in Bordeaux (1999)

Brilliant painter Francisco de Goya, considered by many to be the most important artist of the modern era, reflects on his turbulent career and tempestuous relationships during the decline of Spain and a bloody war of independence, while living out his final days in exile.

"The Night Is Made For Sleep... And Painting... And Love" ~ Scenes From A Life

Note: Spanish with English subtitles.

Synopsis: An old man awakens in bed confused and bewildered. After wandering through a house he doesn't recognize he ends up out on the street impeding traffic and pedestrians until his daughter Rosarito (Dapne Fernadez) comes to his rescue and takes him home. The old man is the legendary painter Goya now in the twilight of his life. Through the eyes of age and experience his life unfolds in a series of flashbacks revealing his passion for painting, his one true love Cayetana (Maribel Verdu) and his homeland Spain.

Critique: Released in '99 `Goya in Bordeaux' is an artsy film heavy on visual presentation but somewhat lacking in character development. It has the feel of a stage production except for the few sequences filmed outside. Most of the film is shot indoors within the confines of the home or studio of Goya. The settings are extremely minimalist, containing just enough furniture as necessary. The cinematography gives the impression of a stage providing just enough light to allow the audience to follow the action but dark and shadowy around the edges to give the impression of more space than there really is. The atmosphere created by the director is indeed unique but just didn't appeal to me.

Making matters worse, I also found the cast to be stiff and uninteresting, except for the lovely Dapre Fernadez in the role of his daughter and care giver. I simply couldn't get caught up in the storyline and ended up watching mostly for the well conceived sequences when Goya's paintings came to life to haunt and fascinate.

My rating: One viewing was plenty for me. My rating: -3 Stars-. July 21, 2007

Chapeau !

With 82 years and exiled in Burdeos Francisco Goya tells to his daughter Rosario the vicissitudes of his life: a life marked by the illustrated Spain of king Carlos III, the invasion of Spain by Napoleon, the corrupted kingdom of Fernando VII, political intrigues and the murder of his lover Cayetana, duquesa de Alba.

" Goya en Burdeos " is so a personal and very beautiful homage to the genial spanish painter as a perfect synthesis of Saura's career as filmmaker and artist; so a film scrupulously documented as a creative recreation and profound reflection about Goya's work and life. The structure of the movie is intrincate and fluid, and also emblematic of Saura's last film works: a game of mirrors, ebbs and flows where Goya's paintings and motives; imagination, dreams and nightmares; memory and reality form an organic system of communicant vessels. All this and the artifice of to be an old Goya who refers us his life allows Saura to "touch" all the retrospective scenes of the film, dark dreams and disturbing imaginations of Goya with the light, colour and motives of his paintings, matter in which takes an important part the excellent photography work of Vittorio Storaro. In this sense, both artists, Saura and Storaro, go a step beyond than in his previous and magnificient collaboration together ( this is, " Tango " ) in using colour and light to create transitions and narrative jumps in time and space. Unforgettable are, for other part , the recreations with actors ( catalonian avantgardist theatre group " La fura dels baus " collaborates in some of them ) of some famous Goya's pictures, as if they were paintings turned into life. The film is beautifully closed, with a circular movement, over the birth of Goya: it's snowing outside and the image gradually dilutes until the colour white occupies all the screen, this is, like if the screen was a not used linen. Seconds after we read Andre Malraux's famous words: " With Goya begins modern painting "

But - as it have been said above- " Goya in Burdeos" is also a synthesis of all Saura's previous film work: we find in it the political commentary and allegoric language characteristic of his firsts films; a reformulation of the coreographies and formal experiments we find in his more recent musical ones; plastic invention inspired in barroque painters; metalinguistic games; the use of light and colour in a conceptual and narrative way; the anticlerical satire; metaphisic arguments and a labyrinthic narrative structure.

In short, "Goya en Burdeos" is an astounding and very personal experience of cinematographic and plastic invention inspired in the work of one of the most influential and genial painters of all time, and until today the most profound and passionate homage that someone has dedicated to Francisco Goya. But this review would'nt be complete if we forget to mention that " Goya in Burdeos " is also the artistic testimony of another man who has gone a step forward of his time ( and, may be not accidentally, from Aragon too... )

Widescreen edition. August 25, 2006

Goya In Bordeaux

Truly excellent movie. The photography makes one believe one is looking at a moving Goya painting. Really first rate. January 29, 2006

The human side of a genius

The society tends to think of artists as selfish, solitary and detached from reality. "Goya in Bordeaux" shows the surprisingly human and sympathetic side of the great artist. The film is not just about Goya's genius. It's about his earthly loves. After a lifetime of moderate promiscuity, Goya settles down into unexpectedly conventional domesticity with his wife and daughter. His concern for his family is genuine and tender. Goya agrees to discontinue his disturbing paintings, because they scare his daughter. January 21, 2006

extraordinary

this is up class artwork.....not for crowd...fantastic scenes, the movie just like beatiful painting as Goya's....thank you Mr.Saura & immortal Goya... July 21, 2005

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