Blog Directory CineVerse: A horror film with real backbone

A horror film with real backbone

Thursday, October 8, 2015

Director Guillermo del Toro has proven himself to be master of the fantastical, as evidenced by his imaginatively visual works like "Pan's Labyrinth." An earlier companion film to to "Pan's Labyrinth" is "The Devil's Backbone" – a haunting ghost story set during the Spanish Civil War. For a recap of major conclusions reached by CineVerse last evening after watching the movie, read on:


HOW IS THIS FILM DIFFERENT COMPARED TO MANY CONVENTIONAL HORROR MOVIES?
It relies on a curious, satisfying blend of fantasy, politics, poignancy, tragedy, history, and horror to tell its tale.
o The setting is the Spanish Civil War, which underscores the sad circumstances of the characters and their lives; however, the film doesn’t require the viewer to be an historical expert on the Spanish Civil War to appreciate this story.
The rationale for the supernatural phenomenon and the ghost’s motivations is more understandable and sympathetic. As Roger Ebert put it: “Ghosts are more interesting when they have their reasons. They should have unfinished affairs of the heart or soul. Too many movies use them simply for shock value, as if they exist to take cues from the screenplay. (This film) understands that most ghosts are sad, and are attempting not to frighten us but to urgently communicate something that must be known so that they can rest.”
While the movie has its supernatural shocks, scares and related special-effects, arguably the real source of terror and tension in this tale is the troubled times, flawed authority figures, and political setting that these children – and all Spanish citizens subjugated by Franco’s fascism – must endure.
o Put another way, this isn’t a cheap exploitation horror film that goes for lowest common denominator “gotcha” popouts, gore and gross-out effects, or gratuitous violence. Instead, it’s a richly layered and carefully textured thriller in which we care about the characters and can appreciate the historically accurate back story.
It also tells a story from the perspective of a vulnerable parentless child, whose conflicts and disturbing experiences are all the more unsettling because of his age and dependency on undependable adults. Good horror films involving children in danger are often extra suspenseful and nerve-racking because we are forced to identify with and/or sympathize with a lead child protagonist. Carlos and the other boys are threatened and/or frightened by multiple forces, including the ghost, the ticking bomb, Jacinto, and violent soldiers.

THIS IS ALSO A FILM REPLETE WITH SYMBOLISM. CAN YOU CITE EXAMPLES?
Jacinto and his dark nature represent the infiltration of Franco’s fascism throughout Spain at this time – this nature can influence and infect Spain’s younger generation.
Santi the ghost is a surrogate for the disembodied, helpless, tortured Spanish citizens who have been forced to endure their country’s Civil War and political tragedy.
The unexploded bomb symbolizes how precarious a situation this is for Spain – with the possibility of extreme violence and destruction detonating at any moment.
The parental figures of Dr. Cesares and headmistress Carmen and the volatile young Jacinto represent an Oedipal triangle, according to critic J. Hoberman.
Carlos exemplifies the country’s future, which, at this time is uncertain.
Ghosts/objects frozen in time, as exemplified by the fetuses suspended in a solution of rum and by Santi appearing as if he’s underwater.

WHY IS THE FILM CALLED “THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE”?
Recall that the head of the school explained how the rum solution in which the fetuses were kept was sold to gullible people seeking an elixir, yet that suspension fluid worked as a perfect preservative to keep the fetuses intact and free from decay; this underscores the filmmakers’ main point here: the blurred line between science and superstition, between reality versus fantasy, and how we can interpret our events and experiences as either realistic or fantastical.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S STYLE AND APPROACH AS A FILMMAKER?
Criterion Collection essayist Mark Kermode wrote: “His best work combines a love of the freedom of fantasy with a commitment to the strictures of social responsibility, creating populist fables with strong political undercurrents, fairy stories about the “real world,” often seen through the eyes of a child. In this context, The Devil’s Backbone (2001) is a touchstone, bringing together the personal and the political in perfect, passionate harmony...a key to del Toro’s work (is) the triumph of sympathy and melancholia over terror.
Kermode further wrote: “The recurrent themes that haunt del Toro’s work: the ghosts of history, the freedom of fantasy, the imperative of choice, the relationship between the “real” and the “imagined.” At its heart lies the conviction that horror and fantasy are inherently political.”
Kermode continued: “…it is the pain and tragedy of the Spanish Civil War that underwrite both the sense of horror and the spirit of defiance that ring throughout the movie. It is a film about repression that celebrates, albeit in heartbreaking fashion, the irrepressibility of the innocent human spirit. This duality also underpins Pan’s Labyrinth, a fable about a young girl’s exploration of an underworld. Both films balance political tensions with a feud between fantasy and reality, between the way the world seems and the way it is. And both counterpose the recurrent fairy-tale motif of choice against the specter of fascism—the ultimate lack of choice. Both films also centrally feature “a child facing a very adult situation, and dealing with it from a place of grace or purity.”

WHAT OTHER FILMS OR WORKS OF LITERATURE DOES THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE CONJURE UP IN YOUR MIND?
The Sixth Sense
The Spirit of the Beehive
Pan’s Labyrinth
The Others
Night of the Hunter (consider the imagery of Dr. Casares protecting the boys via a shotgun, similar to Lillian Gish’s character)
The Orphanage
What Lies Beneath
The Lord of the Flies

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