Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

ma-cortes This is a highly theatricalized vision of the notorious exiled painter. Picture was originally directed by Carlos Saura and filmed with a pervasive melancholy that does for slow drama . It is is an emotive biography (1746-1828), involving 18-19th century famed Spanish painter named Francisco De Goya Lucientes (Francisco Rabal and as young played by Jose Coronado) and famous model (Maribel Verdu) for the famed painting . It's a slow vision of Saragossan painter Francisco Goya Lucientes' last days in Burdeos , ill and deaf , as he wanders through the streets and remembers the citizens uprising against Napoleon troops . It portrays his relationship with historic personages as Duchess of Alba (Verdu) , Moratin (Joaquin Climent) , Bayeu and the scheming favorite Godoy (Jose Maria Pou). As Goya observes and reminds events, dances , parties , inquisition , French invasion that inspired his work ; as his reveries become tableaux of his paintings . As the highlights of the movie result to be when are brought to life scenes of known paintings as ¨Disasters of war¨, ¨Saturn devouring his sons¨, ¨portrayal of Carlos IV family¨,¨, ¨Los Caprichos¨ , ¨Black paintings¨ , and lithographs , among others . Two of Goya 's best known paintings are The Nude Maja and The Clothed Maja . They depict the same woman in the same pose, naked and clothed, respectively. Without a pretense to allegorical or mythological meaning, the painting was "the first totally profane life-size female nude in Western art" . The identity of the Majas are uncertain. The most popularly cited models are the Duchess of Alba , with whom Goya was sometimes thought to have had an affair, and Pepita Tudó, mistress of Manuel Godoy; Godoy subsequently owned them .This is a costumer based on facts but predominates the slow-moving drama full of flashbacks with surrealist images , nightmarish scenes and colorful set-pieces . The picture relies heavily on relationship between Goya , his wife Leocadia played by Eulalia Ramon (real life spouse to Saura) , his daughter performed by Dafne Fernandez and Duchess of Alba acted by Maribel Verdu . Glamorously and sumptuously photographed by Vittorio Storaro , Bernardo Bertolucci's usual . Lavishly produced by Andres Vicente Gomez , the gowns are extravagantly magnificent ,luxury rooms and paintings pass by in front of your eyes and spectacular though theatrical production design . The sets are superb, at least as good as any other period piece films directed by Saura , furthermore great intervention by the group Furia Del Baus who carries out rousing choreography . Emotive and evocative musical score by Roque Baños. The motion picture is well directed by Carlos Saura , a good Spanish movies director. He began working in cinema in 1959 when he filmed ¨Los Golfos ¨(1962) also dealing with juvenile delinquency . Saura is a well recognized filmmaker both nationally and internationally, and in proof of it he won many prizes among which there are the following ones: Silver Bear in the Berlin Festival for ¨ La Caza or The Chase¨ (1966) his most successful film , and for Peppermint Frappé (1967), in 1967. Special Jury Awards in Cannes for La Prima Angélica (1974), in 1973, and for Cría Cuervos (1976), in 1975. Also, the film Mamá Cumple Cien Años (1979) got an Oscar nomination in 1979 as the best foreign film, and it also won the Special Jury Award at the San Sebastian Festival. In 1990, he won two Goya , The Spanish Oscar , as best adapted screenplay writer and best director. Saura became an expert on Iberian musical adaptations as ¨Carmen , Amor Brujo , Bodas De Sangre , Sevillanas ,Iberia , Salome, Fado, Flamenco ¨ and even recently Opera as ¨Io , Don GiovanniOther films dealing with Goya's life are : ¨The Naked Maja¨ (1958) by Henry Koster with Anthony Franciosa and Ava Gardner ; ¨Goya¨ by Nino Quevedo also with Francisco Rabal ; ¨Los Desastres De Guerra¨ TV series by Jose Ramon Larraz with Enric Majo as Goya , ¨Volaverunt¨ (1999) by Bigas Lina with Penelope Cruz , Jordi Molla and Jorge Perugorria as Goya .

secondtake Goya in Bordeaux (1999)A beautifully filmed and imaginative look at Spanish painter Goya's final years in France. There are fantastical flashbacks (really nicely created with translucent sets and changing lighting) and there are imagined versions of scenes that led to his paintings, highly colorful and gruesome. And effective.If this movie isn't a raging masterpiece, it is mostly because there is no real plot. It's slow going, even though it is meant to be deliberate and patient. It meanders along as he lives out his final isolated years and we are shown (in spurts) his work and his past. The old Goya himself is played with believable gusto by Francisco Rabal, and the younger (with surprising continuity) by Jose Coronado. Neither are names familiar to American viewers, but both are convincing, which isn't always easy portraying a famous artist. If there is a deeper point here, it is the journey we all make toward death. And from what I read, Goya was afraid of death, and would be afraid of old age just as much as this movie implies.If you like your artists heroic and inspired, you might find this version of Francisco Goya a little earthy and self-absorbed. But for me this was about right. He was an old man with little future, too much pain to make significant new work, and lots of memories. Of course, this being a movie (and being about life, too), there is an emphasis on his love affairs, or at least his interest in one particular rich woman, the Duchess of Alba. In truth, there isn't a clear history of Goya being involved with this woman, though there are several portraits of her (not including, most likely, the famous pair of reclining figures, one nude and one clothed, though this is implied if not stated in the movie).All of this is neither here nor there for loving what is wonderful about the movie. Director Carlos Saura has created a magical world for this final great painter, one filled with the grotesqueness we associate with his work but also with terrific inventiveness, making the paintings come to life without simply re-staging them. The best last sections of the film are a tour-de-force, and indeed the whole movie is vivid and surprising. If we are sometimes slightly unenthused about the events going on (which are often nothing much), we are completely sucked in by the ever changing scenes and sets and hallucinatory worlds, part real and part Goya's dying mind.In other words, the best of this movie is simply amazing. And any movie with such amazing portions is worth watching, at least in those parts.

Hilldoc The review completely ignores some very good performances in this film. Francisco Rabal was terrific and also notable were the Duchess of Alba and the young girl. I enjoyed some of the musical pieces as well. All in all there's a lot more than cinematography to this and it's definitely worth a look.

vinniemafalda This movie portrays very well the Spanish history and like his last movies, Carlos Saura makes art out of the illumination and the colours. As usual, Paco Rabal is magnificent and Maribel Verdu is perfect for the role of la Duquesa de Alba, very sensual and a little evil.