| The Devil's Backbone | |
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Original Spanish-language poster |
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| Directed by | Guillermo del Toro |
| Produced by | Guillermo del Toro Pedro Almodóvar |
| Written by | Guillermo del Toro Antonio Trashorras David Muñoz |
| Narrated by | Federico Luppi |
| Starring | Fernando Tielve Íñigo Garcés Eduardo Noriega Marisa Paredes Federico Luppi |
| Music by | Javier Navarrete |
| Cinematography | Guillermo Navarro |
| Editing by | Luis De La Madrid |
| Studio | Canal+ España Good Machine |
| Distributed by | Warner Sogefilms A.I.E. (Spain) Sony Pictures Classics (United States) |
| Release date(s) | April 20, 2001 (Spain) November 21, 2001 (United States) |
| Running time | 107 minutes |
| Country | Spain Mexico |
| Language | Spanish |
| Budget | US$4.5 million |
| Box office | US$6,459,020 |
The Devil's Backbone (Spanish: El espinazo del diablo, literally The Backbone of the Devil) is a 2001 Spanish-Mexican gothic thriller film written by Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras and David Muñoz, and directed by Guillermo del Toro. It was independently produced by Pedro Almodóvar.
The film is set in Spain, 1939 during the Spanish Civil War. During the director's commentary in the DVD, del Toro stated that, along with Hellboy, this was his most personal project. The film was shot in Madrid.
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A boy named Carlos (Fernando Tielve) arrives at an orphanage, thinking that he will be staying there temporarily, until his father returns from the Spanish Civil War. In the center of its courtyard, there is a bomb which was defused. Carlos then sees a ghost of a boy in the kitchen doorway who disappears shortly after. When he goes in to investigate, he is distracted by two orphans, Galvez and Owl, whom he befriends. He shows them his toys and comics, until Jaime (Íñigo Garcés), an older orphan, steals one of them. Carlos starts to fight with him but is distracted by the sight of his tutor and his bodyguard driving away without him. Although he doesn't know it, his father is dead, and he will be staying in the orphanage indefinitely. Dr. Casares (Federico Luppi), the assistant administrator, sympathizes with him. That night, in his bed, Carlos is distracted by noises, suggested to be a ghost. The alleged ghost knocks over a pitcher of water, which wakes the rest of the orphans. Carlos and Jaime dare each other to go into the kitchen and refill the water pitchers. Carlos wanders down a spiral staircase, where he hears the ghost, who tells him cryptically that many will die. He runs away, but Jacinto (Eduardo Noriega), a former orphan who now works at the orphanage, catches him.
The next day, Carlos does not reveal why he was out, which earns him Jaime's respect. However only when Carlos saves Jaime from drowning at the cost of having his face cut by Jacinto does Jaime's bullying of Carlos' cease. Jaime offers him a drawing and a piece of cake in return for the stolen comic book, to which Carlos refuses. When a long sigh is heard, an orphan mentions a ghost, and it is explained to Carlos that a boy named Santi (Junio Valverde) had disappeared on the same night the bomb was dropped. And since then, there has been a ghost haunting the orphanage. Jaime acts as if he does not believe in the ghost. Later on at night, Carlos sneaks out to the courtyard. He approaches the bomb and asks it to show him where Santi is. In response, a paper streamer on the bomb is caught by the wind and leads him to the ghost, but Carlos becomes scared, and runs away. The ghost follows him into the main building and corners Carlos at the end of a hallway. Frightened, he locks himself in a closet, where he sleeps that night. Later when Carlos looks in Jaime's sketchbook and finds a picture of Santi bleeding he then realizes that Jaime knows more than he's telling. Jacinto has been in the orphanage for a long time, and despises the place. His girlfriend Conchita (Irene Visedo), on whom Jaime has a crush, has plans with him to get married. He is aware of the existence of a stash of gold at the orphanage, and he uses sexual favors to steal keys from Carmen (Marisa Paredes), the head of the orphanage to open the safe. Carmen loves Dr. Casares, though she is unwilling to acknowledge this. Dr. Casares is embarrassed by his impotence and it seems to inhibit his confidence relating to the physical aspect of his love. Jacinto is unsuccessful in stealing the right key to the safe.
On a trip to town, Dr. Casares witnesses Carlos' tutor and his bodyguard being executed by the army. Dr. Casares plans to lead the orphans away from the orphanage, because of the rapidly escalating war. Jacinto demands the gold but is forced to leave at gunpoint. As the orphans and staff prepare to leave, Conchita discovers Jacinto preparing to blow up the safe. She threatens him with a shotgun, he taunts her, and she accidentally shoots him in the shoulder. In the ensuing melee, Jacinto succeeds in burning much of the orphanage down before leaving. The explosion kills Carmen and many orphans, leaving many of the survivors badly wounded, including Dr. Casares. Dr. Casares resolves to take up guard duty over the remains of the orphanage, waiting at the window with a shotgun for the return of Jacinto.
The night after the explosion, Jaime tells Carlos that he was present when Santi was killed. They had been collecting slugs near the cistern, a sort of man-made pool of water in the cellar under the kitchen. Santi hears a noise and discovers Jacinto trying to break into the safe. Santi runs back into the cellar and Jacinto follows. Jacinto tries to threaten Santi; when they struggle, Jacinto slams him against a support column. Santi suffers a serious head wound and begins to go into shock. Jacinto enters a state of panic and rushes off. In Jacinto's absence, Jaime comes out of his hiding place and tries his best to comfort the mortally wounded Santi, the scene being revealed to the audience as the same one that was foreshadowed at the very beginning of the film. Jaime then hears Jacinto returning, and runs off. Jacinto, unaware of Jaime's presence, ties weights to Santi's body and pushes his still-alive body in the cistern, where he drowns.
The second day after the explosion, Dr. Casares succumbs to his wounds, but before dying vows to the boys that he will not leave them. Meanwhile, Jacinto is en route back to the orphanage with two co-conspirators. While driving, he meets an exhausted Conchita, who has walked through the night attempting to enlist aid in the town. Jacinto stops the vehicle and demands that Conchita apologize for shooting him. Conchita refuses, stating proudly that she is no longer afraid of him. Jacinto stabs her in the stomach, killing her. Leaving her body on the side of the road, Jacinto and his friends make their way to the orphanage, where they imprison the surviving orphans and then set about looking for the gold. Jacinto and his accomplices manage to open the damaged safe where Jacinto saw the gold hidden, but are despondent when it is revealed to be empty. Angry, the conspirators abandon Jacinto, taking the car and leaving him at the orphanage. However, in his despair Jacinto catches a glint of light in the rubble, and finds the gold hidden in Carmen's prosthetic leg, half-buried in debris.
Meanwhile, the orphans rationalize that they will be killed once Jacinto finds the gold. They sharpen sticks with shards of glass as makeshift weapons, and Galvez volunteers to climb out of a small, high window in order to open the locked door from the outside. Unfortunately, Galvez severely injures his ankle after he slips and falls from the window and is unable to move. Very much to the surprise of the other boys, the door suddenly unlocks and opens, seemingly of its own accord. The boys quickly exit and come to the aid of Galvez, who tells them that it was Dr. Casares who opened the door and that the doctor told him that the boys must be brave and protect one another. The boys find Dr. Casares' monogrammed pocket square in the hallway, and move to confront Jacinto. The boys cleverly lure Jacinto into the cellar, and distract him while Jaime stabs him in the chest. The boys then push the wounded Jacinto into the same pool of water where he drowned Santi. Weighed down by the gold in his pockets and dragged down by the ghost of Santi, Jacinto drowns. The surviving children then leave the orphanage, watched over silently by the ghost of Dr. Casares.
The response was generally positive, though it did not receive the critical success that Pan's Labyrinth would in 2006. Roger Ebert compared it favorably to The Others, another ghost story released in the same year. Christopher Varney, of Film Threat, claimed: "That 'The Devil's Backbone' makes any sense at all — with its many, swirling plotlines — seems like a little wonder." A.O. Scott, of The New York Times gave the film a positive review, and claimed that "The director, Guillermo del Toro, balances dread with tenderness, and refracts the terror and sadness of the time through the eyes of a young boy, who only half-understands what he is witnessing."
The film was #61 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for its various scenes in which the ghost is seen. It currently holds a 91% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. [1] Bloody Disgusting ranked the film at number eighteen in their list of the 'Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade', with the article calling the film "elegant and deeply-felt... it’s alternately a gut-wrenching portrait of childhood in a time of war and a skin-crawling, evocative nightmare."[2]
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