Movie Review of The Devil's Backbone (2001)

The Devil's Backbone is billed as a ghost story, and so it is.  Within ten minutes of the opening sequence there is your ghost.

Nothing hidden. Nothing half-glimpsed.  One ghost on full view. 

You should get your clues from that transparency that this is not going to be your average Hollywood output. You aren't going to get your horror genre thrills from things jumping out from cupboards or plenty of gore.

It's all much more subtle than that.  It's not even Hollywood.

Set during the closing days of the Spanish Civil War, this is a movie which uses its ghosts as a metaphor for the whole country.  Or you could just watch it straight and not notice the undercurrents.  They are there, they're stylish, but they're not in your face.

The special effects are minimally applied, but when they are used, they are given just the right touch. Mostly it's the astounding performances of all involved, which carry this intricate tale into its horrific conclusion.

The beauty of The Devil's Backbone is that nothing is entirely as it seems.  At least it's not if you come steeped in horror movie traditions, and you're simply waiting for the same old, same old to unfold.

You quickly realize that the horror is not in the supernatural, but in everything else besides. This is a story set during the closing stages of a war.  The owners of the orphanage are on the losing side. This is where the true horror lies.

After watching the movie, I read a few reviews to see if everyone else saw the same film as I did.  Amongst the many using words like 'masterpiece' and 'stunning', there was one sour note. One person complained that the antagonist was too good-looking!

I admit that I laughed. That viewer was obviously someone who likes their world to be delineated in firm black and white.  The baddies have to be ugly and the good guys have to be gorgeous. 

If you wish your entertainment to be so simple, then this is not the film for you. It's way more intelligent than that. The very fact that it doesn't employ cheap convention is what keeps the viewer on their toes. 

Just as in the Spanish Civil War itself, you do not know who to trust, or if there are concepts so neat as trust and distrust.  Family turned upon family, but there was love there too.  So it is with The Devil's Backbone, where sides shift depending upon the twists and turns of the narrative.

Though I do admit that the antagonist is definitely easy on the eye!

Another criticism that I read really made me face-palm.  "It's not in English!" The reviewer bemoaned, like that somehow lessened the whole experience.

The truth is that it really didn't.  I am not Spanish speaking.  I was reading along with everyone else.  As the movie began, I wondered how I would get on with that, as it felt like I was missing something constantly watching the words on the screen.

The reality was that, within five minutes, I totally forgot that I was reading.  I didn't miss a moment of the action and I never once felt that I was missing out.  Perhaps it would have been better to have understood the Spanish, but it's not necessary.

Every scene is crafted to perfection, with the tension growing by the second. You are too busy caring about every person on the scene, and wondering what is going to happen to them, to even register the subtitles. They are just being read as a matter of course.

If you're not willing to give a Spanish language and subtitled movie a go, then frankly you deserve to miss out on this one.

There are three women in The Devil's Backbone.  The young and beautiful Conchita; the matronly Alma; and the orphanage's overseer, Carmen.

While we don't hear a great deal from Alma, they are all very strong characters.  This is a movie where even what is happening in the background is worth watching, and that's Alma's realm. 

Meanwhile the changing times have a much more profound place for Conchita and Carmen. They are very much in the foreground, fighting the good fight.  Not one of those three women appeared as two dimensional people. The movie could have been told from the point of view of them all.

(It was also interesting to analyze The Devil's Backbone as a sovereignty tale, with Carmen playing the role of Spain Herself.  Would she choose the impotent poetry of the Republic or the cold aggression of Franco's Fascism?)

With all this background and beauty, it seems incredible that the movie could possibly fail at such a low bar as the Bechdel Test allows.  Yet I watched scene after scene, where the ladies stood in the same room without exchanging a word to each other.

Finally it happened!  It barely counted as a conversation, but it was communication. Alma asked Carmen if she was alright.  Carmen, without looking at her, answered the question.  Then later Carmen spoke the words shown on my illustration above.  Alma didn't verbally respond, but she did act on it.

Thus there was a pass on the Bechdel Test, but only just.  It feels peevish to even award it for so little, but the Bechdel Test's standard really is that low.  It seems a shame that so many movies can't even beat that.