<< Back 7/31/02 Flicks By Hunter Pope The Devil’s Backbone Writer and director: Guillermo del Toro Rating: R — for violence, language and some sexuality In Spanish with English subtitles Cast: Jacinto: Eduardo Noriega Carmen: Marisa Paredes Casares: Federico Luppi Carlos: Fernando Tielve Conchita: Irene Visedo The ultimate horror story is war. It all begins with disagreements — political, social, religious — subjects that brew in the soul until they become sour. Egos manifest like an unkempt sore and before too long, thousands are (forced) corralled for the benefit of these swollen self-images. Cities are destroyed, family trees are disrupted, orphans are created, and sadness becomes the ruling emotion. One of the most devastating examples was the Spanish Civil War, which pitted the fascist rule of Francisco Franco against the Republican loyalists. Dissenters of Franco were rounded up like cattle waiting for the beef line, creating one of the darkest (and most embarrassing) moments in Spain’s turbulent history. This soiled era is re-examined in the Spanish film, “The Devil’s Backbone.” The setting is an orphanage, which secretly houses children who have lost their parents fighting for the Republican cause. Historically, we know the place is doomed. The timepiece is near the end of the war, right before the fall of Catalonia. However, the encroaching war is only one of the frights in this movie. “The Devil’s Backbone” is also a ghost story. It’s not the kind of in your face supernatural story that has ruined many a good movie. No, this one lurches up behind you, generating goose bumps on your arm before you realize a scare is coming on. The movie begins with a very unsettling voice over — “What is a ghost? An emotion, a terrible moment condemned to repeat itself over and over? An instant of pain, perhaps? Something dead which appears at times alive. A sentiment suspended in time ... like a blurry photograph ... like an insect trapped in amber.” The voice belongs to Professor Casares (Federico Luppi), an Argentine expatriate scientist, who is a kindly mentor to the orphaned boys. Casares is secretly in love with Carmen (Marisa Paredes), the principal of the school, and poster mama for the war’s atrocities. She has lost her husband in the war, as well as her leg. Her artificial support is gangly, an ugly defect from an even uglier war. However, the real center of the story is the newest member of the orphanage, Carlos (Fernando Tielve), whose father (unbeknownst to him) died for the Republican cause. Carlos is tough, his calloused common sense protecting him against bullies like Jaime (another orphan) and the sinister Jacinto — present janitor and former student of the orphanage. Carlos is given bed #12, which he finds out used to belong to Santi, a child who was killed during a bomb raid on the orphanage. The bomb is the first ghost we see, a relic from forged hate. The bomb never defused after a plane sent it on its way. Instead it spends its life stuck in the concrete courtyard. The orphans swear its alive. Anyone who knocks on it can hear a guttural groan that shakes the interior of the bomb. It was during this raid that Santi disappeared, many believing that that the bomb was the culprit. Coincidently, Carlos begins hearing stories of “the one who sighs,” a ghostlike child that wisps around the courtyard. Carlos is in tune with the supernatural, and he is visited (and stalked) nightly by a youthful apparition with dark hollow eyes and transparent blood that gushes out its head. Like most ghosts, there is a reason for its cling to the real world. A true ghost is not one that needs chains and a spooky voice to frighten mortals. There is an unsolved problem, a necessity to fix the matter before the afterlife is granted. Carlos must sleuth the problem, and before it’s all over, we find a secret that’s much more devastating than Franco’s rule. The movie’s dread is heightened by mood specialist, Guillermo del Toro. The Mexican director is a master of shady atmospheres and making us fear whatever lurks right around the corner. Del Toro began his ascent at 28 when he directed “Cronos” (1994), a tale about an antiques dealer (also starring Federico Luppi) who invents a small sleek golden beetle. The beetle’s claws are razor honed, and any contact with human flesh bestows vampirism on the affected. Del Toro then went on to Hollywood to direct “Mimic” (1997 starring Mira Sorvino and Jeremy Northam), which depicted mutated bugs in a claustrophobic subway station. Cheesy, yes, but Del Toro’s lighting and sense of helplessness vaulted this movie out of the “B” cellar. “The Devil’s Backbone” is his best work to date. He skillfully grafts the apocalypse of Franco with a ghost story that shatters even the most steely of nerves. Even his background is full of the grotesque. There’s the one-legged principal. Casares keeps jars of stillborn babies with protruding spines. They’re pickled in rum that Casares sells to people looking for miracle cures. Then there’s the vile Jacinto, a nasty virile man who’s also sleeping with Carmen behind the back of cuckold Casares. The landscape is even more unforgiving. Escape is futile. The days are arid with a sun that wilts any travelers, and the cold nights sink into the marrow. Each character is trapped, both in a personal hell, and an exterior hell. One only needs to look at the bomb, or have a visit from the “one who sighs” to remember that death waits beyond the orphanage. No, the movie is not happy, stories of war rarely are. But, for those looking for an old fashioned ghost story without the Hollywood FX schlock will be pleased. There is no cookie cutter formula here, and the uneven pace may embitter the average moviegoer. But for those who have patience, and an eye for meticulous camera work will relish in Guillermo’s ghost story. It has the feel of a drawn out campfire yarn. As the tale grows, the inner peace trickles out; leaving a cold terror that ices the sense of well being. A ghostly tale is much like war. Both are looking for solutions, but the tragedy that surrounds it is too frightening for many of us to look at directly. The only hope is that someone is brave enough to peer inside the monster and find a moral solution. (Hunter Pope can be reachd at w.h.pope@worldnett.att.net)