The Devil’s Backbone
Jul 30th, 2008 | By Rick | Category: Reviews
This is not John Wayne
We see the ghost in the opening scene of Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone. There’s no slow reveal, no build-up, no ratcheting-up of suspense. And it liberates us to pay attention, and pay attention we should. As in any good opening sequence, del Toro tells us all we need to know about what’s going to come. The pleasure, in this and any well-constructed film, is figuring out how it all relates, how it all comes together.
It takes place in the waning years of the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s forces are winning and they’re rooting out the leftist sympathizers, two of whom run the orphanage where The Devil’s Backbone is set. The story follows Carlos (Fernando Tielve), a boy whose father was killed in the resistance, as he arrives and attempts to fit in at the orphanage. Dark doings have occurred in the past, and soon they impinge upon Carlos’ everyday life, as the ghost — called “the one who sighs” by the orphans — seems to have chosen the boy for a special task.
The film is solidly constructed from a script by del Toro, Antonio Trashorras, and David Muñoz. It relies little on tricks and tropes of the horror trade, although there are a few scares. Instead, it builds suspense smoothly, fitting the pieces gradually together until everything comes together satisfactorily. del Toro’s style here is smooth and unobtrusive — although he moves the camera fluidly, he seems to know when to keep it still as well. The locations near Madrid give a “western” feel to the proceedings; it reminds me particularly of Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More, both filmed partially in Spain. Of course, the fact that del Toro busily quotes from a variety of oaters (see above) doesn’t hurt at all.
Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega and Federico Luppi give strong performances as the three adults whose interrelationships determine everyone’s fate. del Toro appears to have a light touch with the child actors; he gets performances out of them that ring true, especially Tielve and Íñigo Garcés as the boy who knows the orphanage’s dark secret. Unlike in much of Hollywood’s product, del Toro’s child characters suffer real pain and loss. Knowing that his young characters can be placed in true jeopardy lends a sense of veritas and emotional gravity to the drama.
Judging from his output, del Toro seems to have kind of a schizoid quality about him. There’s Popcorn Guillermo, whose Hellboy movies are fast paced and rollicking, model comic book adaptations bent on nothing more than a good time. But there’s also Auteur Guillermo, director of dark, adult genre fare such as Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth. Given that he’s slated to helm The Hobbit and its unnamed companion piece, I wonder: which one will show up?
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I really hope the HOBBIT is more PAN’S than HELLBOY.
I enjoyed both, but one is clearly a better picture.
Haven’t seen BACKBONE yet. It’s all queued up though and ready to be watched.
Backbone I like a lot, obviously … I need to see Pan’s Labyrinth again. These Spanish ghost stories are wonderfully creepy. I loved Amenabar’s The Others, the del Toro-produced El Orphanato and now Backbone. (that’s the order I saw them in, anyway).
I hope Auteur Guillermo shows up for The Hobbit as well.
I really admired this film when it came out, but they released it near Christmas. Someone wanted this film to die at the box office with that kind of timing, but it seems to have developed a DVD following that it richly deserves.
I don’t know if you’ve seen Bunuel’s Los Olvidados, but it is very clear to me that Del Toro was paying homage to Bunuel’s film with The Devil’s Backbone. I think every Mexican/Spanish filmmaker must lay his or her offering on the Bunuel altar before moving on.
I haven’t seen Los Olvidados … hopefully, I can get it on my Netflix queue.
Western directors must pay obeisance to Ford, thriller-makers to Hitchcock, comedy-directors to Lubitsch and Capra … as I implied in the piece, I think del Toro was doing a little Ford-homage-paying as well. Several of his images were straight out of The Searchers.