The Devil's Backbone
THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE (EL ESPINAZO DEL
DIABLO) (18)
D: Guillermo del Toro
Sony Pictures Classics/Canal+/Good Machine (Agustin Almodóvar
& Bertha Navarro)
Spain/Mexico 🇪🇸 🇲🇽 2001
108 mins
Horror
W: Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras & David
Muñoz
DP: Guillermo Navarro
Ed: Luis de la Madrid
Mus: Javier Navarrete
Marisa Paredes (Carmen), Eduardo Noriega (Jacinto), Federico
Luppi (Dr. Casares), Fernando Tielve (Carlos), Iñigo Garcés (Jaime)
Similarities will be made with the same director's Pan's
Labyrinth, although The Devil's Backbone predates it by 5 years.
Set during the Spanish Civil War, at a remote setting, with
children as the key characters, whose eyes filter out the politics involved in the on-going war. Guillermo del Toro's direction also allows the story to be told through atmospheric photography
and macabre production design, rather than blood and gore effects.
After his father dies, a 10-year old is sent to a desert
orphanage, where a ageing professor and a crippled widow hope to protect them from the war outside the walls, but the true danger exists within the walls, initially in the form of a bullying
older boy, the rumours of another orphan who disappeared, and the janitor with an attitude (Eduardo Noriega), a former child of the orphanage.
A
mysterious ghost story with hidden messages about the political landscape at the time, The Devil's Backbone is worth a watch simply for the chilling style in which it's filmed.
6/10
