THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE review

THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE

This is the first film by Guillermo Del Toro in four years. His last flick was MIMIC, a film that had wonderful moments, and some pretty damn lame ones. In MIMIC the film worked perfectly for about 2/3rds, but then in the last act, the film just didn’t go where I wanted it to. Where I think a lot of the audience wanted it to. And I said so in my review (Click Here To Read It!)

However, one major thing has happened since my review of MIMIC that I have to be upfront about... Guillermo and I became really good friends. About 2-3 years ago Guillermo moved to Austin to live and we’ve spent innumerable evenings talking about film, horror and PHANTOM OF THE PARADISE and ROAD WARRIOR as being two pure works of genius.

I say this not because I personally feel that my friendship might cloud my judgment of this film, but just so you know that it might possibly somehow be clouding it in a way that I cannot see. However, with this film if you check out the reviews online at various places like IMDB or here or Dark Horizons, you’ll find that the vast majority seem to be agreeing with me on this one. Hell, it just received a standing ovation at Toronto and was in the top three films chosen out of Telluride… This is a superior work.

THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE has been described as a ghost story, as a SIXTH SENSE type of film. Well, technically this was written well before SIXTH SENSE went into production, but beyond that… this isn’t a ghost story. There is a ghost story in this film, but that is not the primary tale at hand.

This is very much a Mark Twain style story of youth. There is a younger Tom Sawyer child and an older Huckleberry Finn child. Both are orphans in the film, both have individual experiences and relations with what is going on around them. However, this is very much a story about how children handle bad situations and survive an adventure that would kill many. You may recall Bradbury’s SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES here… This isn’t as overtly mystical as that, but the movie has that sort of memory to it.

This is a sad memory. THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE could be described as a classic children’s adventure tale… a Grimm’s Fairy Tale. This is a story where the kids have to fight for themselves. And just as Hansel & Gretel had to push the witch into a burning oven to be roasted alive… here in this film, kids have to be mean to survive.

Okay, you want to know what it is about?

The film is about orphans in a big fortress of an orphanage. The world outside is at war… Bombs fall, people are executed, and inside the orphanage there is only one sign of war… A several hundred pound bomb embedded in the center of the courtyard.

The kids imagine it's still ticking… The bomb has a personality… tap upon it and it seems to answer. My father used to tell me stories when he was young of sneaking onto the airbase in San Antonio with his friends… Of climbing onto replicas of the two bombs that dropped upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As kids, they were just two miraculous firecrackers that ended the war their fathers nearly died in… They were the good guys, they’d climb on top of Fat Boy and pretend they were falling upon Japan… Years later the horror of what those empty shells represented gave weight to a childhood ‘toy’, but in this film… This bomb chose not to kill all the occupants of the orphanage. So in the kids’ mind, the fact it didn’t go off represented sentient kindness… Something that kids confer on that which no longer hurts them.

Remember the boy in POLTERGEIST and the tree out his window? That sort of thing.

The star of the film, Carlos, is left at the orphanage without the knowledge that his father has died. He’s the new kid… Instantly a target for being picked on and pranks… The pecking order of childhood. He hears about ‘the one who sighs’ but no one will tell him about it. He learns that he has the locker and bed of a boy named Santi who ran away the night the bomb fell. He’s picked on by Jaime, the school bully. He learns that Professor Casares is the kindly ol' teacher that helps him to adjust. And then he learns about Jacinto, the groundskeeper, who was the orphan that never left. Oh, and then there is the one who sighs… The one that catches Carlos’ eye and interest.

Is there anything more fascinating to kids than DEAD THINGS? I mean, as children we love dinosaurs because they are ferocious monsters that can no longer harm us. Whenever death touches something around us as children, we become obsessed with it. Probably because we were so alive. What’s the saying? OPPOSITES ATTRACT.

Well, Carlos is the most alive character in the film, and he attracts the most dead character.

This is where Guillermo nails it. Children are afraid of ghosts. Everyone is. But Children are also the most curious beings on the planet. A child will be curious till being afraid takes precedence. THEN, upon learning about the lack of harm that befell them, they’d go further the next time.

Del Toro has constructed a very Dickens/Mark Twain Children’s Story here. There is gold, therefore it must be hidden. There is a ghost, and there is a mystery about why it is here. There are bad men, and there’s a reason they do the things they do. There is tragedy, terrible terrible things happen… but as all kids must learn… Life Must Go On.

I imagine some may be disturbed by what happens towards the end of this film, but frankly… This is real… Real in the most terrible ways reality can be.

Guillermo has made his best film. This is so much better than MIMIC that it isn’t even funny. CRONOS, which I love, is excellent, but the narrative momentum of this story is much more engaging.

Guillermo and I love many of the same old movies. This film most reminds me of NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, but without the adults to save the day. The world is that same scary place where there are adults that will kill children without batting an eye. And Guillermo doesn’t blink when it comes to this or the other tough decisions that this story required him to take.

The idea that a filmmaker is going from such a deeply personal and breathlessly accomplished work as this to a mainstream genre effort like BLADE II is fascinating to me. There is a part of me that wishes Hollywood never found Guillermo. That he would make these small deeply personal genre movies for the rest of his life. I have no doubt that BLADE II will be very fun, and hopefully God willing, he’ll infuse it with soul… just an ounce of the soul that is in DEVIL’S BACKBONE will do.

THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE will be coming to theaters in November... do not let this one pass you by… it is one of the absolute best movies you’ll see this year. Plan to eat some ice cream afterwards… you’ll want something happy and pure afterwards… I suggest Cookies & Cream. Have a double scoop… I’m on a diet.