Leonard Maltin's 151 Best Movies You've Never Seen - Maltin, Leonard [17]
Karen Moncrieff told me that her inspiration for this mosaic of stories was a gnawing anger she felt about violence against women and how it’s regarded in our society. Her script was so good that it attracted a high caliber of actors, none of whom had to make an enormous time commitment in order to participate: The movie was filmed in twenty-five days as if it were five separate short films. There are no weak links, but I want to single out Marcia Gay Harden and Kerry Washington, who are both great in the penultimate segment of the film, a highly emotional confrontation between two women who would never meet under any other circumstances. (Ironically, Washington was rejected more than once for the part because she was considered too pretty.)
Moncrieff says, “I like movies that shake me up. I go to the theater to see something reflected back to me that looks like life. My idea of a chick flick is anything by Kieslowski. Red, White, and Blue, those are some good chick flicks.” That kind of passion for challenging drama shouldn’t go unrewarded: The Dead Girl is downbeat, to be sure, but never dull.
22. THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE
(2001)
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras, and David Muñoz
Actors:
EDUARDO NORIEGA
MARISA PAREDES
FREDERICO LUPPI
IÑIGO GARCÉS
FERNANDO TIELVE
IRENE VISEDO
BERTA OJEA
Some film buffs and critics became aware of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro when his first, ambitious science-fiction feature Cronos first played in the United States in 1994. Others caught on when he brought his personal touch to such mainstream movies as Mimic and Blade II, and his following grew with the release of a film borne of his love for comic books, Hellboy. By the time the dark fairy tale Pan’s Labyrinth arrived on the scene in 2006, del Toro was being hailed as a master by critics and fans alike.
Yet somehow, even people who admired Pan’s Labyrinth seem to be unaware of his previous endeavor in this arena, The Devil’s Backbone. Like the later, better-known feature, this one is also set against the backdrop of the Spanish Civil War and tells its tale from a child’s point of view. A highly stylized blend of suspense and the supernatural, it takes place in an orphanage on the outskirts of a town seemingly cut off from the world. In the courtyard of the ancient compound lies an unexploded bomb embedded in the ground—a visual metaphor not easily dismissed.
Our hero is ten-year-old Carlos, who’s been dropped at this institution to fend for himself. The people in charge are nice enough, but he is tormented by a bully and spooked by a caretaker who doesn’t like the boys snooping around.
Then there’s the ghost of a boy named Santi, who used to live at the orphanage. He chooses to communicate with Carlos and will not let him rest, warning him of impending death. Del Toro takes these basic story elements and augments them with character quirks and visual details it would be pointless to describe.
The filmmaker has been writing and drawing in a series of notebooks since he was a boy. When it comes time to prepare a screenplay, he goes back to inspirations that struck him weeks, months, even years earlier. Each of his films has been gestating in his overactive imagination for some length of time. That’s why his most personal films, The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, are so richly layered.
Del Toro has known real terror in his own life; his father was once kidnapped and held for ransom. That’s one reason he is able to blend reality and fantasy in such a beguiling way. He sees the bizarre and surreal even in everyday settings, and has a gift for realizing that vision on-screen.
A great ghost story with an all-too-believable setting, The Devil’s Backbone is unrelentingly eerie—a thinking person’s Halloween