Hey folks, Harry here with another look at Del Toro's masterful THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE from Anton Sirius, who actually got that this is really a children's tale... in the same way that Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES and OLIVER TWIST are. Bad things live in the world of children. And sometimes children have to be more than kids with action figures and allowances... And sometimes they have to get ugly. This is that movie. Anton also takes a look at several others, but man... DEVIL'S BACKBONE... I have to go finish my review...
"I’m hardcore!"
- Bubbles
Day Four
(You’ll get that quote when you see Blade 2.)
Thanks to his boundless energy and warmth my interview with Guillermo del Toro went smashingly well. Rather than wait for me to get around to transcribing it to report this (which given my track record for such things might end up being the fifth of Never) I will serve up a small bit of information now. I don’t recall if this was ever confirmed when the news hit a couple of weeks back, but Vin Diesel is indeed officially attached to Hellboy. In my opinion it’s an excellent choice. Pitch Black proved he had the physical charisma; Iron Giant proved what he could do with just his voice. If Hellboy does eventually sprout wings and take flight, between it and Triple X Mr. Diesel may just find himself with two franchise characters on his hands.
I have some more information on the status of the Uptown, but I don’t want to say anything until I have some more official confirmation. If what I’ve found out is accurate the situation is a little more grim even than before. But then that’s always the case when the government gets involved.
I’m at Anton2001@Yahoo.Com
The Devil’s Backbone (2001, directed by Guillermo del Toro)
If I were 9 years old, this would be the greatest movie ever made.
Forget most of what you’ve heard about the Devil’s Backbone (or at least, most of what I had heard.) It’s not a horror film. What it is, dig, is a Boys Own Adventure, complete with hidden gold, scary ghosts, and resourceful kids giving an evil adult his just desserts. It is everything the sanitized Disney worldview blindfolds itself to, and Goddess bless it for that.
The story is set during the Spanish Civil War. Carlos is the son of a rebel, recently killed at the front, who is deposited by his papa’s comrades in arms at an all-boys orphanage run by sympathizers. Carlos quickly runs afoul of Jaime, the orphanage’s bully, but soon realizes that he has more to worry about than just Jaime- he hears strange whispers in the night and sees shadowy apparitions darting around corners. The orphanage, it seems, is home to many secrets.
One of the remarkable things about the Devil’s Backbone is its cast. The three main adults in the film are all played by accomplished (to say the least) actors- Marisa Paredes (All About My Mother and other Almodovar films) plays the crippled Carmen, del Toro veteran Federico Luppi plays the odd Professor Casares, and Open Your Eyes’ Eduardo Noriega plays the brooding Jacinto. But it is Fernando Tielve as Carlos who holds the film together. Carlos is brave and inquisitive, but not stupid, and is the ideal set of eyes through which to uncover the mysteries of the orphanage. And Hollywood should file Tielve’s name away for later, because if they ever need a young Benicio del Toro for a flashback, Fernando would be perfect.
But this is not just a cast-driven movie. The effects are outstanding and subtle- the ghost, when finally, revealed, is an exquisite portrait of eternal suffering. The Devil’s Backbone also features a fearlessness when it comes to depicting children caught in the crossfire of war. This is not a fluffy tale where everything is set right and they all live happily ever after; the violence here is real and brutal, and actions have consequences. But the thing the modern mindset doesn’t seem to get, which del Toro so obviously does, is that heroism, particularly the heroism of a child, is only meaningful when actions have real consequences. And sometimes those consequences are ugly. But to deny those consequences, to deny that tragic things can happen to children, is far more insidious and dangerous than the standard kiddie-fare alternative.
The Devil’s Backbone is a magnificent film, scary and thrilling, and an enchanting vision of a world every child wishes they could inhabit- one filled with magic. The film is getting a platform release later in the year, but given the standard operating procedure of the MPAA these days you might have to wait until video for a chance to share it with your kids. Here’s hoping you don’t.
You Really Got Me (2001, directed by Pal Sletaune)
Ah, rock stars. They’re such an easy target for comedy. Which really doesn’t explain why so few good comedies have been made about them- I mean, assuming Spinal Tap is the unquestioned king, if I sat down and made a list Airheads might still crack the top three. Does You Really Got Me do anything to rectify this situation? Um, well…
The plot is promising. Bent is the long-suffering drummer to Norway’s answer to Robert Plant, Ivor Mo. Mo’s popularity might be huge, but his ego is larger, and he takes great delight in tormenting his supposed friend and bandmate, never letting him forget that he would be nowhere if he didn’t know Ivor. Bent decides to end the humiliation, and set himself up for life, by having Ivor kidnapped.
Meanwhile, Jan is a sweet yet total loser whose restaurant business is near-death and whose obnoxious, abusive father is unfortunately very much alive. When Helle, Jan’s girlfriend, finds out he’s sunk her inheritance into the restaurant behind her back she packs up and leaves him. With the landlord about to foreclose and no hope for the future, Jan wanders out into the forest to kill himself.
Needless to say, paths cross and much mayhem ensues.
You Really Got Me is by no means a bad film, but the humor never really seems to click. Both Jan and Bent are too much the sad sacks to generate much sympathy, and while Ivor is the most charismatic character on screen, anyone who finds themselves rooting for such a spoiled bastard prima donna has some issues they need to deal with. The only truly sympathetic character in the film is Helle. Unfortunately Helle is not the star, and without a character at the film’s heart to root for the picture never builds up any momentum. It’s for the most part a series of scenes where one annoying character does bad things to another annoying character.
I’m sure the Farrellys are negotiating adaptation rights as we speak.
Rare Birds (2001, directed by Sturla Gunnarsson)
If there’s a funnier race on God’s green earth than Canadians I have yet to meet them. And yet, outside of sketch comedy, their homegrown efforts have been notoriously spotty. Canada, for instance, has never produced a passable sitcom, much less a great one. The Canuck hath given us the Kids in the Hall, but also Brain Candy. Perhaps this inability to fully use their own talent stems from their constant struggle against American cultural hegemony, or their own inferiority complex.
Whatever the reason, it makes it all the more amazing when a film like Rare Birds comes along.
Nominally starring an ineffectual, bumbling (and surprisingly adept at comedy) William Hurt as Dave and the alluringly knee-weakening Molly Parker as Alice (yeah, like she’s so frumpy the rest of the time), Rare Birds is really a breakout vehicle for Newfie comedy vet and Codco alumnus Andy Jones. Jones, as Hurt’s best friend Phonse, is sly, impish, quite possibly mad, always two steps ahead of those damn Winnebago people, and completely owns the film.
The plot is fairly screwball, so describing it beyond "Phonse and Dave try to save Dave’s restaurant" is a waste of time and self-defeating. Besides, nobody goes to see a comedy for the plot. If it takes more than one sentence to sum up the plot of a good comedy then you just haven’t done it right.
Rare Birds is extremely funny. You will laugh. Andy Jones is brilliant. What more do you need?
Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001, directed by Stacy Peralta)
Midnight Madness makes it three for three this year with Sundance darling Dogtown and Z-Boys, one of the best, most entertaining, and relentlessly inventive docs I’ve ever seen.
The film covers nothing less than the birth of a cultural phenomenon. Once upon a time skateboarding was a dead thing, a fad that briefly captured America’s attention and then was thrown away with the rest of the trash the country no longer paid attention to. There was no X-games, no multi-million dollar industry, no half pipes.
The Zephyr crew changed all that. This is their story.
Narrated by Sean Penn and featuring an almost unbelievably kicking soundtrack, Dogtown and Z-Boys looks at the history of skateboarding through the eyes of those who were at ground zero. Mixing stills and film footage from back in the day with present-day interviews, the doc succeeds in embodying all the manic energy and attitude of a bunch of kids who broke every rule they could get their hands on, then did it again when they noticed new rules springing up in their wake. It’s brash and giddy and an absolute trip, even if (like me) you know little about skateboarding.
Of course if skateboarding is your scene bring a change of clothes, because you’re going to have an orgasm.
There are enough stories in Dogtown and Z-Boys to fuel a dozen Hollywood features- the rebel who is driven to be number one on his own terms (Tony Alva), the star who is happiest out of the spotlight (Stacy Peralta), the golden boy who flies highest and crashes hardest (Jay Adams), these kids lived life as far above the lip as they could reach. In fact there was no such thing as ‘above the lip’ before the Z-Boys. There wasn’t even a lip.
But the film is more than just a collection of stories. To say that it’s infectious and intoxicating is not just a metaphor. Somehow, through genius editing and crazy camerawork and just sheer balls-out chutzpah Peralta mainlines the energy of their riding directly into the film. Dogtown and Z-Boys plays like the crew rides, and you can tag along or you can get the hell out of the way.
One of the best films of the fest so far, right there with All About Lily Chou-Chou and the Devil’s Backbone.
Anton Sirius
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