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Guillermo del Toro is a great talent. He writes, produces, directs and designs many of his films. I believe that twenty years from now he will be looked upon with the same revance, love and respect that directors like Coppola, Spielberg and Scorese have currently. His attention to detail and loving care put into every fabric of his films makes them works of great art. Yes, these are quite often horror, fantasy or supernatural films, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have to be artistic. The Devil’s Backbone is a spiritual cousin to Pan’s Labyrinth, and while it doesn’t quite reach the emotional heights and artistic greatness that Labyrinth did without even trying, Backbone is a great film from beginning to end and comes within inches of reaching those same plateaus.
The ominous, and golden hued, opening follows a dead boy’s sinking to the bottom of a body of water and a fetus in a jar. These images are interspersed and woven together so seamlessly that it’s hard to tell which is which. They act as foils to each other, and establish the tone for the rest of the film. Del Toro has professed that once a Catholic you’re always a Catholic, and there is a strong element of Catholicism permeating throughout the film. The artifacts, symbols, color palette – everything feels as if it was culled from the church. I am in awe of how he can make the image of a dead boy’s ghost both frightening, beautiful and vaguely religious. That floating blood from his wound and bubbles, or are those small bugs?, hovering around him add to the mystique.
But what is there to say of the story? I don’t want to reveal too much, but it involves a groundskeeper and his hatred for those around him. It is told from the point-of-view of a child left behind at the orphanage/school during the final stages of the Spanish Civil War. It wouldn’t be impossible to think that somewhere in the distantly viewed woods that Ofelia was finding her own supernatural/mystical adventures.
This film even shares some of the same cast. But I make it sound like Pan’s Labyrinth came first, it didn’t. The Devil’s Backbone and Cronos are horror films which pointed the way and illustrated the beautiful depths to which del Toro was willing to crave down into in order to churn out his art. Notice how he’s only made about seven or eight films since 1993 while numerous other directors that appeared around that time have gone on to make twice or three times that? Del Toro is about the art, and The Devil’s Backbone is his first great work of art, but not his last.
