The Devil's Backbone
Review
by: Kyle
DuVall
Starring:
Eduardo Noriega (Jacinto) , Marisa Paredes
(Carmen), Federico Luppi (Casares)
Directed by: Guillermo Del Toro
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With the best horror movies, all the familiar adjectives are
usually found wanting. You can call The Exorcist "terrifying",
and, sure, by definition, the film truly is terrifying, but
can those syllables say enough? You can call The Haunting
"atmospheric" or "chilling", but again, those words, like
any strong adjective weakend by overuse, just don't have the
true power they need.
Likewise,
you can use the word "haunting" to describe Guillermo Del
Toro's The Devils' backbone. Its really the only word you
can use. But the word, one which is tossed around far too
often in the context of horror films, can't measure up to
the feeling The Devil's Backbone will leave you with.
The Devil's
Backbone is a ghost story where both the darkness and the
nobility of the human spirit walk side by side. Its not a
fright film, instead, it's the kind of horror tale where the
dread slowly surrounds you like some spectral mist, a mist
that doesn't simply dissolve and disappear when the lights
go up. The clinging residue of Del Toro's masterpiece lingers
for hours after the images have disappeared, leaving the viewer
with both a dark thrill and a visceral chill.
Set during
the Spanish Civil war, The Devil's Backbone is the story of
Carlos, the new kid in a school full of war orphans. Isolated
and all but empty, the decaying old school is not your typical
home for orphaned children. For starters, there's a massive,
unexploded bomb in the orphanage's central courtyard; the
headmaster, Dr. Casares, funds the place by selling a patent
medicine made from embalming fluid; and the school's hidden
safe is being used by leftist rebels to hide a fortune in
gold. And, of course, the school is haunted.
In this
case, the spirit in question is a child-specter the orphans
call "the one who sighs", and Carlos' run-ins with the ghost
in his first furtive days at his new home soon lead him to
uncover the dark secrets of the orphanage and the people that
inhabit it.
While
tentatively probing the supernatural puzzle, Carlos must also
deal with a school bully and some abusive adults. He also
finds new friends, and discovers a kindly mentor in the wise,
old Dr. Casares. When revolution, murder and greed all converge
in the orphanage, it's the children who must band together
for their own survival, with the terrible secret behind "the
one who sighs" becoming the key to it all.
In concept,
this story doesn't exactly light you on fire with innovation.
The plot devices and character types are all pretty familiar
in the realms of both young adult fiction and horror. What
makes this film transcend from cliched to classic is its sincere
and totally uncompromising nature.
The Devil's
Backbone is the kind of tale that could never be made in Hollywood.
Essentially a story about both the myths and power of childhood
innocence, Del Toro is not afraid to show us that children
swept up in violent times can die, nor does the director gloss
over the desperate acts "innocents" themselves must resort
to in a wicked world. In his handling of the Orphnas, Del
Toro shows us children more real than might be politically
correct for a major studio. They talk about sex, use foul
language… basically all the things that used to make all Spielberg's
young characters so real, and despite their helplessness,
they have the one thing the adult world around them doesn't
seem to have... a sense of community.
Del Toro
also realizes that, in the real world, good and evil, strength
and weakness, can exist in the same human being. Every adult
character in the film has been tainted by the war around them,
even though the war is being fought far off-screen. Every
grownup has a dark secret inside them, and each one has to
face it in the film. Some come out admirably, others succumb
to the corruption.
It is
the children, the so-called "helpless" innocents, that suffer
or benefit for the choices made in those moments of truth.
How these seemingly helpless individuals live with the things
they cannot control is Del Toro's simultaneous refutation
and idealization of our romantic notion of youth. Here, children
are always at the mercy of adults, adults who can easily be
tainted by greed, sex, and violence, but the same innocence
that puts them at the whims of a world they can't control,
is also what keeps them safe. When adults succumb to all the
aspects of war that are poisoning their souls, the children
are unaffected. The children are weak, yet stronger than the
world that surrounds them. This is Backbone's real meaning,
and Del Toro's statement is never compromised by sentimentality
or a need to pull punches.
The Devil's
Backbone is not a horror film about shrieks or monsters jumping
into the frame for a quick scare. Its about the haunted feeling
you will leave the theater with, and the mixture of triumph,
strength, and unimaginable sorrow the final frame leaves you
with. Every true horror fan should thank Del Toro for what
he's made, and every true horror fan should riot in the streets
if this doesn't get a respectable release.
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