The Devil's Backbone
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VHS Movie Reviews of The Devil's Backbone
Movie Review: Great Suspense movie
Summary: 5 Stars
One of Almodovar's best movies, it's kind of different to all the other Pedro Almodovar's style, beautifully filmed, great music and photography, good story, great actors, lots of violence, (Franco's Post war Spain's Era)Movie Review: An unconventional ghost story
Summary: 4 Stars
The collaboration of two dominant Hispanic filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Pedro Almodovar resulted in a suspenseful drama "The Devil's Backbone", which was a spiritual prequel to the acclaimed "Pan's Labyrinth".
Set primarily at a remote orphanage in the waning days of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, the film is photographed beautifully using the backdrop of the desolate Spanish countryside. The orphange harbors boys of high ranking members of the losing Republican cause. Reminders of the conflict are all around typified by an unexploded bomb buried nose first in the courtyard. New boy Carlos played by Fernando Tielve is dumped there by his tutor and he immediately struggles to gain acceptance.
The orphanage is administered by compassionate headmistress Carmen played by Marisa Paredes and kindly Dr. Casares played by Federico Luppi. Sympathetic to the Republican cause they sequester of a cadre of gold ingots to be used to finance the war effort. Mean spirited Jacinto, played by Eduardo Noreiga, the young caretaker and former denizen of the orphanage only has aspirations to steal the gold bars, mistreating the children throughout the film.
Soon after his arrival, Carlos begins to be visited by the ghost of Santi, a young orphan who mysteriously disappeared during a bombing raid. The ghost predicts in foreboding fashion of death.
The film plays out with the fighting coming closer and closer and the orphanage must be abandoned, while the villainous Jacinto searches with his cronies for the gold.
Good ultimately triumphs over evil as supernatural forces aid in the salvation of the poor innocents in this combination of ghost story and social commentary.
Movie Review: Chilling, thrilling and good
Summary: 5 Stars
Ghost movies are ordinarily of no interest to me, but I rented this one after loving Pan's Labyrinth, and was not disappointed in this prequel. Transpiring at a time much earlier in the Spanish Civil War than Pan, the fictional events in this film, like the later one, give viewers a glimpse of the surreal horror of that time. Yet the movie also conveys an important message, that children are not so easy to corrupt, and not so quick to surrender, no matter how tenuous their position. It's another wonderful piece by this extraordinary director. Bravo.Movie Review: Chilling!
Summary: 5 Stars
This was great! I even got goosebumps during the credits. A very well-told ghost story that kept my attention all the way. Nothing overdone, but excellent acting, good music and a fine story made up for having to read subtitles.Movie Review: Like nothing you've seen before.
Summary: 5 Stars
Guillermo del Toro is one of the most celebrated young writer-directors currently working in cinema and his "Pan's Labyrinth" was my favorite film of 2006.
If you enjoy classy ghost stories, you're not going to want to miss this gem. Like "Pan's Labyrinth," "The Devils Backbone" is set in Spain during the the civil war, and like that film its main protagonist is a child and, save for resplendent cinematography by Guillermo Navarro and evocative music by Javier Navarette, that's where the similarities end.
Sorrow thrives at Santa Lucia School. There is indeed a ghost, but most of the residents are haunted by memories of happy families, exhausted passion and life before the war. Marisa Paredes, the aging actress in Almodovar's "All about My Mother," is captivating, Federico Luppi is moving, and Eduardo Noriega a beautiful, tortured villian. This is cinema on a grand scale.
[Just as an aside, as the Harry Potter films get darker and darker, del Toro gets my vote to helm at least one of the remaining films.]