When I was a child, and even though my mother is Spaniard, I was frightened of anything that had to do with Spain. As I grew up, I became more rational about it, yet, I usually got sick every time I went there. The first time I went to the Prado Museum, I fainted, after going through all those rooms filled with “Christs bleeding” in dark canvas. Only when I became an adult, my relationship with Spain changed for the better and now I finally understand it was all about ghosts. Where did they come from, those ghosts of my childhood? From history, of course, especially the Inquisition, but also from the tales of the horrors of the Civil War and also from the fear that Franco might invade Portugal.
So, I liked the idea of Goya having ghosts, the ghosts of his Spain. I’m not exactly an admirer of Spanish painters, as I stated before, but some of Goya’s works are interesting as portraits, although the more ghostlike ones are as terrible for me as El Greco’s , for example. And those are the most important in the film, above all those concerning the Inquisition. The spectacle of fear, horror, torture, misery and bigotry are all exemplary in the film as in Goya’s works. So, why is it a failed movie in the end? The answer is: simplification, which is the deadliest foe of history.
I know there’s the question of time and space economy in the narrative, always compulsory in films. But serious mistakes could have been avoided, for sure, the worst of them being the French “invasion” of Spain. In fact, Spain wasn’t invaded; Portugal was. Why? Because Spain was an ally of the French. As Spain couldn’t conquer Portugal, Napoleon had to send his men to do it. The Spaniards invaded Portugal together with the French. At the same time, many French troops stayed in Spain ready to take over. From the moment Napoleon decided to move into Portugal, he knew he couldn’t trust the Spaniards who had betrayed him in Trafalgar, and decided to go for the whole of the Peninsula. The Spaniard revolt only exploded after the Royal Family was removed to France.
Connected to this issue, there is another one of great relevance, as far as the story of the Peninsular War is concerned. It is wrongly established that before the revolt in Spain (2nd of May) all was quiet in the Peninsula. It's not true. From the very first moment, the common people of Portugal took a stand against the occupants. This country is so poor, that all that was left for the people was to starve, after the French having taken all the goods away.
From December till mid February, there were incidents in many various places, with individuals fighting the French and the Spaniards too. Today, Mafra celebrates the memory of the first to be executed by the French, exactly two hundred years ago (cf. poster above). His name was Jacinto Correia, a man of the people who fought back when his possessions were confiscated by the French Army. He was shot by a firing squad, but the revolt only got worse. After mid February, it was no longer individual, but in groups. After May, when the Spaniards left, due to the revolt in Spain, the whole country was in uproar.
There was no army (disbanded by the French) and no noblemen (all in Brazil). It was a people's revolution, where everybody fought for survival with what they could afford: knives, shovels, axes, sticks, stones, boiling water, etc. At that time, the popular militia were formed (before the much more famous Spanish guerrillas) and the fight was to the death. The French could only respond as an army does, and the massacres followed suit. No one knows how many died, but it was an unstoppable wave, like a tsunami, something the French military would never understand properly.
When the English disembarked in August, nearly all the country was in the hands of the people. After two battles, Junot capitulated and negotiated a way out, in which the British allowed him to carry away all they had stolen, against the Portuguese will. Fine allies as ever !
Of course, Napoleon didn't stop there, and three more invasions of Portugal followed, defeated by an Anglo-Portuguese army, not just by the British army, as they like it to be known. Wellington, who, during the first invasion, knew nothing of the country or people and dealt with Portugal with the same contempt as most of his countrymen do, understood many other things when he came back and implemented a clever strategy planned by the Portuguese (scorched earth and the lines of Torres Vedras). That granted him a unique place of respect in the history of the oldest Alliance, as far as the Portuguese part is concerned.
The official truth forgets the real victims and heroes of that war: the Portuguese people, who, alone and unprotected, stood their ground and gave their blood for their land. It's high time the truth be known and the history books be changed. And it’s high time too a great epic movie is made about this.
