Goya in Bordeaux

The great Spanish painter (Francisco Rabal), in exile in France at the end of his life, reminisces to his young daughter (Daphne Fernandez), while his past and present seem to mingle in his mind; he wanders among associates long dead while others enter the room where he lies ill and bedridden. Writer/director Carlos Saura’s film is a visual phantasmagoria based on themes and images from Goya’s art as well as his life, defiantly artificial (even theatrical) and stunningly photographed by Vittorio Storaro. The dialogue (at least in the English subtitles) is stilted and pedantic and confusing to viewers unfamiliar with the subject, but Saura’s images, like Goya’s, are haunting and hard to dismiss. Rabal and Jose Coronado (playing the painter as a young man) lend the film dignity and distinction.