The Devil's Backbone

Yesterday's film:

10/28: Let me preface this review by saying how much I love Guillermo del Toro. The man has a vision for filmmaking like few others and what really sets him apart I think is his comfort in his own filmmaking skin. del Toro movies always feel unabashedly like del Toro no matter what type of movie it is because they feel completely honest to what they are. Take Pacific Rim and Pan's Labyrinth, for instance. Both are completely different types of films but both are exact perfect examples of what you would hope that type of film would be. del Toro loves his material and audience enough to respect them and create something that isn't pandering but rather is what you would want to see watching that movie. Add on top of that his understanding that practical effects are vastly more impactful than CGI majority of the time and you have one of the best directors working out there right now.

With that in mind I watched del Toro's horror film The Devil's Backbone and saw the above exactly. I admit this was my first foray into del Toro's horror (unless you include Pan's Labyrinth in that genre, but it's a bit of a hard fit) and I was not disappointed. With this film del Toro asks, "What is a ghost?" the first line of the film. To answer that question del Toro takes us through a story that is not a ghost or horror story in the traditional sense but rather looks at how living humans and the situations they find themselves in are ghostly. There is a ghost in the movie but it is more a backdrop than at the forefront of the story; del Toro instead spends time studying childhood, camaraderie, misplaced love, the effects of war, and the bitter evil that can be found in a person. The Devil's Backbone is, for lack of the better word, a "thinking man's" horror film.

The acting is stellar here as well, especially with the young boy who plays Carlos. His luck of utter despair and brokenness after being left at the orphanage at the beginning of the film cut right through your soul. Without knowing too much about del Toro I would guess he has projected much of himself as a child into Carlos as the child feels so real and poignant. 

The Devil's Backbone is del Toro at his finest, and it's interesting to see him playing the film a little smaller than some of his other films as well. The movie feels just as I said before: real to what it is. After watching so many ghost films this month it's great to see one that's not about the scares but rather about something deeper and more quiet.

10/10