#666: DEL TORO, Guillermo: The Devil's Backbone (2001)
DEL TORO, Guillermo (Spain)
Commentary
Featuring del Toro.
A few influences which he mentions in his “ramblings”:
Interview
The Devil's Backbone [2001]
Spine #666
Blu-ray
Blu-ray
One of the most personal films by Guillermo del Toro, The Devil's Backbone is also among his most frightening and emotionally layered. Set during the final week of the Spanish Civil War, it tells the tale of a twelve-year-old boy who, after his freedom-fighting father is killed, is sent to a haunted rural orphanage full of terrible secrets. Del Toro expertly combines gothic ghost story, murder mystery, and historical melodrama in a stylish mélange that, like his later Pan's Labyrinth, reminds us the scariest moments are often the human ones.
108 minutes
Color
Color
5.1 Surround
in Spanish
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2013
Director/Writers
Written by Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras and David Muñoz.
Del Toro was 37 when he directed The Devil's Backbone.
Other films by del Toro in the Collection:
#551: Cronos (1993)
#838: Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
#1201: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)
The Film
Other films by del Toro in the Collection:
#551: Cronos (1993)
#838: Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
#1201: Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)
The Film
“What is a ghost?”
Answer: almost every character in this masterful film.
Del Toro plants a terrific red herring in the first shots — which make repeated viewings so pleasurable and rewarding!
Set during the chaos of the Spanish Civil War, we observe the arrival a big 30’s car driving drive down a dusty road to an orphanage in the middle of nowhere, depositing a young boy, Carlos (Fernando Tielve), and his injured tutor. Casually, we also see Jacinto (an exceptional Eduardo Noriega) — an orphan who is now a grown man, acting as the caretaker, and his gigantic sidekick, The Pig (Paco Maestre).
The war is everywhere, but unlike Del Toro’s Spanish Civil War companion pic Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) {Spine #838}, we never see any actual fighting. We see a bomb drop from a plane — it lands unexploded in the orphanage’s courtyard, apparently subsequently defused.
We meet Dr. Casares (Federico Luppi) and Carmen (Marisa Paredes), the headmistress. We meet Conchita (Irene Visdeo), Jacinto’s lover and the boys, headed by a bully named Jaime (Íñígo Garcés) and the story takes off.
**
Del Toro is the kind of filmmaker who not only thinks through every single frame, but is such a polymath that he is able to draw on hundreds of varied sources to bring his material to life (see Commentary below). He was planning this screenplay even before he made his debut film, Cronos (1993) {Spine #551) [starring Luppi] …
Produced by the Almodóvar brothers (Pedro and Agustin)and featuring an excellent subtle score by Javier Navarrete. Also incredible sound design by Salvador Mayolas.
Not a boring or inconsequential frame in 108 minutes.
Film Rating (0-60):
The Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by Mark Kermode.
56
The ExtrasThe Booklet
Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by Mark Kermode.
“The ghostly presence is here seen through what appears to be a veil of tears, echoing the watery motif that ripples throughout the movie, a nod perhaps to the traditions of the Japanese kaidan-eiga (ghost story film), along with the masklike white face of Santi, which evokes the ghost of Noh theater.”
Commentary
Featuring del Toro.
A few influences which he mentions in his “ramblings”:
- The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
- Luis Buñuel
- Tom Thumb
- Thumbelina
- Hansel and Gretel
- Giovanni Battista Piranesi
- Carceri d’invencione (Imaginary Prisons)
- M.C. Escher
- Symbolist painters
- Arnold Böcklin
- Caspar David Friedrich
- Carlos Schwabe
- Death and the Grave Digger
- Odilon Redon
- Surrealist painters
- Lord Byron
- “If you cannot move them emotionally or intellectually anymore, just shove them.”
- Roger Corman
- William Castle
- The Monk by Matthew Gregory Lewis
- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
- Charles Dickens
- M.R. James
- Arthur Machen
- The Willows by Algernon Blackwood
- Robert McKee [negative connotation]
- [in case you didn’t notice]: All the “good” characters’ names start with “C” (Carmen, Casares, Conchita, Carlos) and the “bad” ones with “J” (Jacinto, Jamie)
- The Sandman by E.T.A. Hoffman
- Mark Twain
- Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle-Suzanne de Villeneuve
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Pedro Infante
- Deep Red by Dario Argento
- The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan)
- The Eye (Pang brothers)
- The Ring (Hideo Nakata)
- The Grudge (Takashi Shimizu)
- May (Lucky McKee)
- Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez)
- The Searchers by John Ford
- Mario Bava
- Sergio Leone
- Honoré Fragonard
- Horseman of the Apocalypse
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Juana Inés de la Cruz
- The Wild Bunch by Sam Peckinpah
- Marquis de Sade
- Ann Radcliffe
- Goths
- Tango
Video introduction
By del Toro from 2010.
Forty-eight seconds.
New and archival interviews
New and archival interviews
With del Toro about the creation of his film.
About creating the character of Santi (Junio Valverde).
¿Que es un fantasma?
¿Que es un fantasma?
A 2004 making-of documentary.
Interviews with Del Toro, Trashorras, Noriega, Art director César Macarrón, Production director Esther García, DP Guillermo Navarro, Special makeup effects designer David Martí and Montse Ribé, actors Noriega, Tielve, Luppi, Garcés, Vicedo, and Paredes.
Interviews with Del Toro, Trashorras, Noriega, Art director César Macarrón, Production director Esther García, DP Guillermo Navarro, Special makeup effects designer David Martí and Montse Ribé, actors Noriega, Tielve, Luppi, Garcés, Vicedo, and Paredes.
Interactive director’s notebook
Beautiful notebook drawings, accompanied by Del Toro’s commentary.
Beautiful notebook drawings, accompanied by Del Toro’s commentary.
Four deleted scenes
- Carlos and the Principal (Carmen)
- Encounter in the Plaza (building the chicken coop)
- Carmen and Conchita (Jacinto’s lovers not quite coming to terms)
- “I’m Coming with You” (plucky little injured Gálvez [Adrián Lamana]
with commentary by Del Toro.
- Cut for pace
- Cut for pace, but a shame to lose Noriega’s performance
- Unnecessary
- Takes away the surprise of seeing the kids attacking Jacinto
Spanish Gothic
A 2010 interview with Del Toro, conducted by Javier Soto, exploring the influence of the Spanish Gothic genre on The Devil’s Backbone, and Pan’s Labyrinth.
Del Toro speaks of how he differentiated the “fairy tale” genre of The Devil’s Backbone, and Pan’s Labyrinth; transferring the Gothic romance into the 30’s; the quasi-horror of Disney films; the difference of time periods of the two films;
Interview
With scholar Sebastiaan Faber about the film’s depiction of the Spanish Civil War.
Detailed history of the war. If you don’t know anything about the subject, this extra is a good place to start, because Del Toro assumes you know.
Designing The Devil’s Backbone
Del Toro reveals yet another source: an autobiographical Spanish comic book Todo Paracuellos by Carlos Giménez, about kids in an orphanage during the Fascist period. Giménez cleaned up Del Toro’s doodlings into good storyboards.
Extras Rating (0-40):
Del Toro reveals yet another source: an autobiographical Spanish comic book Todo Paracuellos by Carlos Giménez, about kids in an orphanage during the Fascist period. Giménez cleaned up Del Toro’s doodlings into good storyboards.
Sketch, storyboard, scene
Del Toro’s thumbnail sketches, Giménez’s storyboards and the actual scene from the film.
Cool feature.
Selected
On-screen presentation of Del Toro’s thumbnail sketches.
Del Toro’s storyboard sketches are interesting, but unnecessarily attached to watching the film a third time.
Trailer
Brilliant, giving one a sense of the story with no dialogue.
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