Guillermo’s Gold
The Devil’s Backbone (2001) DVD
Starring Eduardo Noriega, Marisa Paredes and Federico Luppi
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by Guillermo del Toro, Antonio Trashorras and David Muñoz
Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment
No matter what story writer/director Guillermo del Toro aims to tell, there’s always an enchanting quality about his films that makes them beautiful and engaging. If you’ve ever been ambitious enough to dissect them, what you find below the surface – sometimes just beneath it – is a treasure of artistic elements and genres synthesized together in a flawless cohesion of cinematic and visual poetry. The new Devil’s Backbone Special Edition DVD from Columbia TriStar is a consummate example of that genius and an absolute necessity to any aspiring filmmaker.
I’m not going to waste words with a synopsis of the film because I’m assuming that if you’re reading Rue Morgue, then you have the good taste to know and love this movie as much as we do. If you haven’t seen The Devil’s Backbone, you’re sorely missing out, it’s del Toro’s masterwork to date and perhaps this review will encourage you to give it a chance.
Though the gorgeous new director-supervised transfer makes those glorious blues and ambers come alive, it’s actually the commentary track that makes this disc so invaluable. Where the previous TVA release of The Devil’s Backbone featured a commentary by del Toro and director of photography Guillermo Navarro that concentrated more on how the film was created and executed, the new track features a deeply personal discussion of the soft science that guided the film and the artistry that made it so resonant.
Del Toro’s articulate, solo elucidation functions like a lesson in art history, architecture and literature, drawing attention to minutiae you might have otherwise overlooked in the film, which only reaffirms his uncanny ability to masterfully choreograph those elements in his cinema. There isn’t a single shot, set piece, design or line of dialogue in The Devil’s Backbone that isn’t completely deliberate and full of meaning.
From the grand architectural etchings of Piranesi and the influence of Luis Buñuel (the patriarch of cinematic surrealism) to Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto (in which a giant helmet lands in the middle of a patio and remains there throughout the story), del Toro discusses their significance to The Devil’s Backbone. Over the course of the lecture, he explains – to exacting detail – how he transposed the elements of the Gothic Romance novel, the classic ghost story, the Victorian fairy tale, melodrama, symbolist art and metaphor into a Spanish Civil War setting.
Even the title of the film itself is an allegory for Spina Bifida – a congenital deformity of the spine, in actuality a result of malnutrition – understood by people during the Spanish Civil War as children who were unwanted or not meant to be born. All of these details only galvanize our already massive interest in the artistry of The Devil’s Backbone. There simply isn’t enough real estate in the magazine to discuss them all so you’ll have to take our word for it. Do yourself a favour, buy a copy and see for yourself why we admire and respect one Guillermo del Toro so damned much.
Jovanka Vuckovic
Managing Editor
Rue Morgue Magazine