El Espinazo del Diablo (Guillermo Del Toro, 2001)
Sunday, April 01, 2007
aka The Devil's Backbone
Without any doubt, Guillermo Del Toro is a gifted horror director. He is well aware of the established iconography and what it means; but whilst acknowledging the genre he refuses to merely copy what has been done before. Instead he takes what have become standard image/symbols and reinterprets them in a way that complement and blend into his story. With El Espinazo del Diablo Del Toro tackles the ghost story.
From the very beginning, a voice-over makes it clear that this is a tale that has to do with an unresolved event that occurred in the past which is characteristic of almost every ghost story. The setting is a boys' orphanage in the middle of the desert and the story revolves around this group of boys, their guardians and a ghost that haunts the grounds. It is a sad ghost that feeds on the sadness of the main characters, whether it being unreciprocated love, the loss of one’s independence, the frustration of not being born elsewhere or the difficulty of keeping a terrible episode for oneself. There are a lot of pent up emotions in Del Toro’s film, beautifully allegorised by the huge unexploded bomb stuck in the ground in the middle of the orphanage’s yard.
The ghost of the boy (Santi, played by Junio Valverde) is marvelous. Not only he is dead and sports the cause of his demise, but little Santi carries with him as well the location of his dead body. The flowing blood is a stroke of genius. This is what I meant by acknowledging the genre whilst reinventing it.
I always love watching Federico Luppi. His presence is powerful without being invasive and even though my knowledge of Spanish is rudimentary at best, his delivery always sounds right. Even Marisa Paredes delivers a strong performance, giving us a woman who is extremely proud and brave but whose soul has been dented.
Favourite moments: when Jaime (Íñigo Garcés) tells his story in flashback and the bit where the boys settle the score with Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega).
Labels: 2001, del toro, dvd, garcés, luppi, noriega, paredes, the devil's backbone, tielve
