The Devil's Backbone (2001)

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  TheMovieDiorama

  8 / 10

  The Devil's Backbone boasts a spine-tingling tragic ghost story. Del Toro isn't just a director, but an artist. His work transcends limitations by merging entertainment with high-quality art without ever succumbing to pretentiousness. His second Spanish feature is no different. An elegantly dark tale that dabbles into romanticism with its gothic poetry. During the Spanish civil war, a young boy is left at an orphanage where he encounters a phantom that haunts the building. Despite apparitions and a sinister title, this is not a horror film. I repeat, not a horror film. It's a tragedy, with the aesthetic quality that bounds ghostly imagery with romanticism. On the surface, its ghostly story is one that consistently maintained captivation with its well-developed characters and intensely harsh environment. Del Toro manages to encompass the orphanage and, by harnessing the "one that sighs", turns a simple building into its own character that withholds a tainted history. However, look through the ferocious fires and romantic tragedies, and you'll find various descriptive layers to this poem. Representing a microcosm for the civil war, the individuals who reside in the orphanage battle with each other before acquiring peace, particularly Carlos and Jaime. The deactivated warhead acting as a beating heart for the orphanage, conveying life to something that is technically dead. It's quite remarkable, and Del Toro keeps providing us with vivid imagery and allegorical narratives throughout. The civil war itself could've been utilised some more to show the psychological affect it has had on the children, and the use of Christian imagery was rarely explored. Santi's ghoulish design works for the most part, especially the watery blurs, although was shown far too early leaving no imagination to the viewer. Del Toro consistently creates menacing antagonists, and Jacinto is just that. He made feel pure hatred towards his abundance of greed and selfishness. And that is what this film is. Emotionally powerful. It proves you can utilise horror imagery to create a story that transcends sub-genres.

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