The Devil’s Backbone
After Carlos - a 12-year-old whose father has died in the Spanish Civil War - arrives at an ominous boys' orphanage, he discovers the school is haunted and has many dark secrets which he must uncover. It is 1939, the end of three years of bloody civil war in Spain, and General Franco's right-wing Nationalists are poised to defeat the left-wing Republican forces. A ten-year-old boy named Carlos, the son of a fallen Republican war hero, is left by his tutor in an orphanage in the middle of nowhere. The orphanage is run by a curt but considerate headmistress named Carmen and a kindly Professor Casares, both of whom are sympathetic to the doomed Republican cause. Despite their concern for him, and his gradual triumph over the usual schoolhouse bully, Carlos never feels completely comfortable in his new environment. First of all, there was that initial encounter with the orphanage's nasty caretaker, Jacinto, who reacts even more violently when anyone is caught looking around a particular storage room the one with the deep well. Second, and more inexplicable, is the presence of a ghost, one of the former occupants of the orphanage named Santi. Not long after Carlos' arrival, Santi latches onto Carlos, badgering him incessantly at night and gloomily intoning, "Many of you will die." As if that wasn't enough to keep the orphanage's occupants in an unrelenting state of terror, there's the un-exploded bomb that dominates the orphanage's courtyard, still ticking away; With the orphanage left defenseless by its isolation, and the swift progression of Franco's troops, the ghost's prediction seems depressingly accurate. Nevertheless, with every step of the plot, it becomes apparent that the ghost's predictions as to who (or what) will die, the real source of danger and even the definition of death itself may be more ambiguous than first thought.
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Director
: Guillermo del Toro -
Casting
: Marisa Paredes, Eduardo Noriega, Federico Luppi -
Production
: Canal+, El Deseo, Good Machine
Our thoughts
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Summary
Following an initial venture into Hollywood with "Mimic," director Guillermo del Toro returned to more familiar ground in "The Devilu2019s Backbone," a collaborative effort between Spain and Mexico, co-written by del Toro himself along with Antonio Trashorras and David Munoz. Set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War, the film unfolds at a remote orphanage where a haunting presence looms large in the form of an undetonated bomb, dropped from the skies, which now stands sentinel-like in the courtyard. Adding to the eerie atmosphere is a child ghost, known to the children as "the one who sighs." Del Toro artfully explores themes of history, politics, and art through a gothic and poetic lens, with the unexploded bomb serving as a phantom of its own. The film also elicits powerful and wide-eyed performances from its youthful cast, while Marisa Paredes and Federico Luppi deliver compelling portrayals as the headmistress and doctor, respectively. However, Eduardo Noriega falls short of embodying the necessary gravitas in his role as Jacinto, a menacing caretaker with a mysterious past rooted in the orphanage. This shortcoming becomes more evident as the narrative threads increasingly converge towards him. The culmination of the story leads to a particularly unsettling conclusion, fitting for a film where the haunting force is not merely a singular specter but the specter of an entire war.