Goya's Ghosts

Set in Spain during the French Revolution and the Inquisition, Goya's Ghosts portrays the irrational, ungodly power of institutions that claim to speak the truth. The film reveals that in corruption, torture and bloodshed, these two events, often considered together as a clash between reason and faith, actually have much in common. The "true faith" that promised Ines eternal freedom put her "to the Question," squeezed out of her a false confession, and kept her in prison for years. Her crime: refusing pork. She was released thanks to a creed authored in the tongue of Enlightenment, only to be driven insane by Lorenzo, her now-rational former lover and newly proclaimed apostate.

This film seems to warn that an arrogant belief in truth depends upon the production of lies, and the exercise of cold rationality necessitates the creation of insanity. After all, it was released during the Bush regime...

Frida

The movie, like the artist, is vivid, raw, poetic. My favorite verses: Frida's love letter to Diego and the speech Diego gave at Frida's opening show in Mexico.

On a postcard to Diego:
Dear Diego,
How are you, panzon?
Why didn' you tell me Paris was such a nightmare?
The French are the most pretentious bores in the world
I'd rather sit on the floor of a market in Toluca
selling tortillas than have to listen to the prattling
of the artistic bitches of Paris.
There really hasn't been as much interest
in the exhibition as Breton promised.
Mexican artists are nothing but an exotic curiosity here.
All in all, it's been lonely
and I crave news from home.
Diego, this letter's a lie.
Paris has been good to me,
but without you, it means nothing.
All the rage of our 12 years together passes through me,
and I'm left knowing that I love you more than my own skin.
And though you may not love me as much,
you do love me a little,
don't you?
If this is not true,
I'll always be hopeful that it could be.
I adore you.
Frida.


Diego at her exhibition:
There was this skinny kid with these eyebrows shouting up at me, "Diego, I want to show you my paintings!" But of course, she made me come down to look . I did, and I've never stopped looking. But I want to speak about Frida not as her husband, but as an artist. I admire her.

Her work is acid and tender
hard as steel
and fine as a butterfly's wing
loveable as a smile
cruel as the bitterness of life.
I don't believe that ever before
has a woman put such agonized
poetry on canvas.


For the moment, these are holding my eyes captive, and wouldn't doubt that they will arrest my dreams tonight as well: