Milos Forman’s favorite (or sick) topic is personality versus system. Foreman knew well (and how could he not have known) that in such confrontations, the person would most often be destroyed by the system. In Ghosts of Goya, it's not communism, it's not a fool, it's not an army. This time the great and terrible Spanish Inquisition. And times are tough. Times in which everyone has to survive. Some do it, some don't. Napoleonic wars. Everyone seemed to get used to the old power, as it was overthrown, and a new one came. And then she was deposed, and the old one came back. The struggle of some elites with others constantly grinded the fate of random people. It is already clear that from each frame should smell lightness and inspiration.
In this film, Foreman looks at the person from a different angle than in earlier films. It doesn't seem to exist in the first place. She'll grow out of her own problems. Life is such that it is only necessary to change in time, to waver behind the party line and then it will be possible to survive, and maybe to succeed somewhere. But to what extent can one change the masks and declare oneself real this time, renouncing what has been said and done before? Ultimately, the choice will be to die or to stop being yourself but survive.
Unfortunately, some viewers were deceived, believing that the film is a biography of the artist Francisco. No, Goya here is a storyteller, a witness of the age. We see the fate of people through his eyes. The film is called “Ghosts of Goya”. In fact, it is a magnificent drama with typical Formian messages.