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The Devil's Backbone  BY: DAVID PERRY Ghost stories come and go from the theatres with little fanfare or impact. The last one that people really noted was The Sixth Sense in 1999, despite the fact that movies like 13 Ghosts, The Others, and What Lies Beneath have bowed since then. The latest genre effort, The Devil's Backbone, happens to come from abroad and, ultimately, proves to be one of the most rewarding ghost films since Peter, Ray, Winston, and Egon went to work trying to rid New York City of poltergeists. The key to The Devil's Backbone's success is that it is perhaps the most knowledgeable horror film made in years -- this is not simply a movie meant to give people some shocks, but a chance for metaphors to hide themselves behind phantoms. There is a ghost in the film, but that is not the main interest of director Guillermo Del Toro; for him, The Devil's Backbone needn't worry with the scares of a ghost when it already has a rather interesting and frightening story dealing with the Spanish Civil War. It's odd going over this film just weeks after slightly indicting Charlotte Grey for its lackluster support of its own history -- while not a bad film, its dependence on realism was comparable to Pearl Harbor. The Devil's Backbone deals with a far more unbelievable scenario but strives to keep its surrounding setting as realistic as possible. While Del Toro was born after the Spanish Civil War (not to mention born in Mexico), his love for his subject's time and place is far stronger than anything brought to the screen by people that lived through their film's events. The Spanish Civil War was, for the most part, the beginning proxy conflict that lead to World War II and yet has been left out of most history classes here in America other than a passing remark (my guess is a majority of Americans would have no earthly idea who Francisco Franco was). Del Toro sets his story in the non-religious Santa Lucia School, an orphanage that has tried to raise religious icons to keep the fascist forces from attacking. The owner of the school, Carmen (Paredes), has turned the place into a fortress for leftist supporters -- herself, most of the faculty, and nearly all of the local patrons are republicans, and the children were orphaned when their republican parents setout to fight for Spain. When the film opens, the fascists are bombing the area and drop a payload onto the school. But the bomb does not go off and now sits in the middle of the grounds as a reminder of how close the war is to this place. While Carmen and the head professor Casares (Luppi) are trying their best to keep their politics and the war outside from touching the children, their head caretaker Jacinto (Noriega), a former student himself, is distraught over the fact that he is working for a bunch of leftist socialists. As Del Toro pounds on the symbols for the republicans and the fascists (old guard vs. youth; a crippled former, a servile latter), he also brings in the ghost. The latest addition to the school, young Carlos (Tielve), finds that he is constantly haunted by the child whose bed he has taken. As this kid, referred to by the other kids as the lost Santi (Valverde), roams the place with blood streaming from his forehead into the air, Carlos fights to not only discover why Santi is haunting the place, but also to fit in with the other kids. Much of the horror in the film is derived from the same standards infused into the style of Alejandro Amenábar. His last film, The Others, was an atmospheric film that attempted to capture WWII milieu in the form of frightened children and their worried protector. The Devil's Backbone is similar in that respect, but ultimately delivers more than Amenábar does. While this is a film that keeps the audience interested in the horror aspects of its story, the main interests always remain on the triangle formed between powerful Carmen, feeble Casares, and virile Jacinto. Much of the terrific support to the story comes from the performances from these three actors. All semi-veterans of the Spanish-language cinema, the three adult leads make the movie into one of the most insightful historical chronicles within a genre film. Eduardo Noriega, best known as César from Amenábar's Open Your Eyes, gives the film the seething rage from the youths that made the fascist regime so powerful in Spain. Once you see him overpower nearly everyone around in tangent to the two powerful elders, it becomes easy to recognize what made Franco successful in the war. Marisa Paredes, best known as Huma Rojo in Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother (Almodóvar, by the way, co-produced this film with brother Agustín), retains a strong structure even though her legs, symbolizing the country's republican foundation, have been taken out from under her and replaced with an artificial leg. Her resilience is constantly seen in her face, which carries much of the emotional basis for the film's few sentiments. However, the best performance comes from Federico Lupi, the magnificent actor from John Sayles' forgotten Men with Guns as well as Del Toro's Cronos, who gets to balance the pathos and the happiness, the disappointment and the resilience. It is so painful to think that actors like Lupi, who has been in films for nearly forty years, never really make a mark in America. Occasionally, a Benigni, Adjani, or Deneuve cross over, but chances of Hollywood ever opening to an old Spanish actor like Lupi is rather unlikely, despite the acting chops he would bring with him. But Hollywood is willing to court Guillermo Del Toro, who
was at work on this film when he signed up to direct the upcoming sequel to Blade.
While this is not the most encouraging choice -- his only other English language work, the
underrated Mimic, was a film more open to Del Toro's stylish flourishes -- it
does bring some notoriety to Del Toro, a fact that might actually make American audiences
go back and admire his Spanish-language masterpieces Cronos and The Devil's
Backbone. Meanwhile, they can finally be exposed to the acting of Federico Lupi. And,
hey, they might just learn a little bit about the Spanish Civil War too. Who thought that Blade
II might be the aid to an end of some American cultural and historical ignorance? |
