Review of Goya's Ghosts (2006) by Matthew B — 10 Nov 2008
Milos Forman's much-lauded masterworks, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus, reveal the director's unique flair for depicting, both hilariously and devastatingly, human depravity and insanity at its most visceral and hysterical.
His directorial panache, matched with Jean-Claude Carriere's magnificent, Bunuel-inspired screenplay, creates a sleek, viciously anticlerical vehicle, propelled by virtuosic performances. Stellan Skarsgaard, unsurprisingly, is acutely nuanced as Goya, the consummate craftsman of Romantic dreamscapes and horrors.
Natalie Portman, ravishing as Goya's muse and revolting as her Inquisition-spoiled older self, turns in a jewel of a performance, and Javier Bardem easily matches her as the sleazy ideological shape-shifter Lorenzo.
Randy Quaid, easily marginalized by his outings as the beer-bellied and wife-beater-festooned Cousin Eddie in the National Lampoon's "Vacation" outings, proves his mettle here as a crafty character actor in his bizarre presentation of Carlos IV - fiddling and all.
Michael Lonsdale (always a delight), Jose Luis Gomez, and Blanca Portillo (brief but memorable as the spidery Queen Maria Luisa) deliver smashing supporting performances. A pure delight, haunting and visually stunning; it is fitting homage to the Spanish master of such phantasmagoric, hallucinatory images.
This review of Goya's Ghosts (2006) was written by Matthew B on 10 Nov 2008.
Goya's Ghosts has generally received positive reviews.
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