Download El Espinazo del Diablo: Transcript

El Espinazo del Diablo: Transcript
What does this ghost boy have to do with the Spanish Civil War?
My name is Emma Anne James from Leicester University. The film I will be talking about is
El Espinazo del Diablo or The Devil’s Backbone. In this video I will give some background
details on the film’s director and his influences, the film in the context of Spanish cinema.
Following that I will outline the synopsis, some historical background information, and I will
then consider the film’s Gothic imagery in relation to social and cultural issues.
El Espinazo del Diablo is a 2001 film directed by Guillermo Del Toro. Del Toro is a Mexican
director who has made several films for Spanish cinema. He often makes films in a style
called magical realism, which is when magical elements are part of a mundane environment.
We will see how he uses this style to create metaphors about historical events. Other films in
which he uses magical realism are Cronos and El Laberinto del Fauno or Pan’s Labyrinth.
In fact, Del Toro has stated that El Laberinto del Fauno and El Espinazo del Diablo should
be understood as ‘sister films’, because they share a number of similarities in setting, style
and story. His English language films are similarly fantasy-based including Hellboy and
Pacific Rim.
El Espinazo del Diablo was critically well-received and provided a successful boost to
Spanish cinema. Though it was El Laberinto del Fauno/ Pan’s Labyrinth which gained the
widest audience, largely due to its Oscar nominations, El Espinazo del Diablo was one of the
films that helped promote Spanish Horror cinema. It has been linked to other Spanish Horror
films such as The Others and more recently Mama, both by Spanish writers and directors. Del
Copyright:
Emma Anne James for the Spanish Film Learning Initiative
Available at: www.spanishfilm.co.uk
Toro has said that supernatural experiences in his own childhood and watching scary BMovies and Hammer Horror films are influences on his work. Therefore, we can see that the
horror genre is very significant in both the making and reception of the film.
To properly understand the film it is necessary to have an understanding of the Spanish Civil
War (la Guerra Civil Española). The war was fought from July 1936 to April 1939. It was a
war between the Republicans who wanted the Spanish Republic to exist and the nationalists
led by General Franco. Franco won, largely due to support from Nazi Germany, and he ruled
Spain in a fascist dictatorship for the next thirty-six years. There were many casualties and
because of Franco’s oppressive rule Spain is still coming to terms with the conflict. The
Spanish Civil War is a defining element in Spanish culture. Just as World War Two has a
huge legacy in other European countries such as Britain or Germany, the Spanish Civil War
does in Spain. This is particularly true because it was fought between Spanish citizens. You
can also see comparisons between this conflict and the on-going issues in the Basque country
and campaigns for Catalan independence.
The film is set in 1939 near the end of the Spanish Civil War. It is set in an isolated
orphanage miles from the nearest town. Carlos, a young boy, is taken by his tutor to the
Republican-run orphanage after his father died fighting. In the centre of the courtyard is a
bomb dropped by the nationalist forces which has been defused but is stuck in the ground.
Carlos is initially bullied by Jaime, but after he takes the blame for Jaime’s rule breaking and
accepts the brutal punishment of having his face slashed by Jacinto, the caretaker, they
become friends.
The orphanage is run by Carmen and Dr. Caseres. Caseres is a scientific man who dismisses
superstition. He tells Carlos about the fluid he uses to preserve aborted foetuses, babies born
Copyright:
Emma Anne James for the Spanish Film Learning Initiative
Available at: www.spanishfilm.co.uk
with spinal deformities such as el espinazo del diablo. Caseres is also in love with Carmen
but he is impotent. Carmern has sex with Jacinto, though she has no love for him and feels
ashamed. Jacinto lived at the orphanage before he worked there and hates the place. He wants
the gold Carmen is hiding for the republican rebels.
Carlos first hears a ghost sighing and then sees him. The ghost warns him “Muchos de
ustedes morirán”. After seeing Jaime’s sketchbook, Carlos realises that it is the ghost of an
orphan boy called Santi who went missing. Jacinto sets the orphanage on fire in his anger at
being refused the gold. Many of the children do die. Jaime reveals Jacinto murdered Santi the
night the bomb dropped; he witnessed it but was too scared to stop him. Dr Caseres dies of
his wounds, but his ghost helps release the children from where Jacinto has locked them up.
When Jacinto comes to kill them they have armed themselves with glass and spikes and they
attack him. He falls into the same pool he threw Santi into and Santi’s ghost comes to drag
him under water. The orphans begin to walk to the nearest town.
Del Toro uses a number of techniques to explore the Spanish Civil War in El Espinazo del
Diablo. His film provides a different perspective on the war, not showing the conflict itself
but depicting its effects on ordinary people and specifically children. Through a child’s eyes
the horrors of war are both exaggerated and downplayed. Certain details become monstrous
while other elements are seen as commonplace. One example of this is the bomb. While
having a bomb in the middle of an orphanage is unremarkable to the children, the bomb itself
is perceived by the children as possessing magical powers.
In the very opening scenes there are two images and themes that are linked together. The
bomb and the ghost. The voiceover asks
Copyright:
Emma Anne James for the Spanish Film Learning Initiative
Available at: www.spanishfilm.co.uk
Qué es un fantasma? Una tragedia condenada a repetirse una y otra vez? Un instante
de dolor, tal vez. Algo muerto que todavía parece estar vivo. Una emoción suspendida
en el tiempo.
How is this linked to ideas of war? Well, at the same time we see the image of the bomb
being dropped on a stormy night. The bomb represents the Spanish Civil War, while the
reference to the ghost is a Gothic image which links to the concepts of death and memory.
The two sides to this film are clearly shown from the start: the war and the Gothic.
The setting of El Espinazo del Diablo is typical of the horror genre, and Gothic stories: an
isolated building which is haunted by events of the past. Stories such as Dracula, Rebecca,
The Wolfman and many others use this type of setting. The first glimpse we get of it is from
above as the bomb falls, this shot emphasises its isolation. A storm rages, rain falls straight
down beside the bomb. The use of pathetic fallacy is common in Gothic fiction, the weather
symbolises the emotions of a person or the atmosphere of a place. We later learn that Jacinto
had just murdered Santi when we see the bomb drop, but even without that knowledge Del
Toro communicates to us that this is a troubled, disturbing location.
The building itself is very important in the story. In El Espinazo del Diablo for instance one
key place is the well. This is where Jacinto throws Santi’s body, where Carlos sees Santi’s
ghost, and where Jacinto himself falls to his death at the end. The well is a dark, frightening
place, hidden away from the rest of the building behind a closed door. It is a place that
represents secrets, and fear, and in religious imagery could be seen as a metaphor for hell: a
doorway to the underworld.
The pool in the well acts as a metaphor, especially when it is linked and contrasted with other
parts of the film. The dark water in the well can be seen as symbolising being trapped,
Copyright:
Emma Anne James for the Spanish Film Learning Initiative
Available at: www.spanishfilm.co.uk
drowning in fear. It is in contrast to fire that Jacinto starts which symbolises rage, violence
and war. The water is linked to the orphans through Santi who drowned in it. The water is the
fate that awaits the orphans and other children of war, they are trapped and cannot escape the
cruelty of people like Jacinto. As Dr Caseres says “Europa está enferma de miedo ahora, y el
miedo enferma el alma”. Fear is a sickness which infects everybody during war. The fire is
linked to Jacinto, he represents the fascists and the brutality of war generally. However, in the
end he drowns in the water. I think this shows that he cannot escape being one of the orphans;
he is just as trapped and frightened by war as they are. Indeed, everyone is, the war hurt all
different kinds of people and no one escaped totally.
The idea that the Spanish Civil War hurt Spanish society is also represented in the scene from
which the film takes its title. The deformed floating babies are a powerful metaphor for
Spanish culture during this time and later. The devil’s backbone, el espinazo del diablo,
suggests an image of a broken, deformed country. Again the idea of fear and war as a
sickness is expressed. Perhaps even, it is even a curse. The babies can be seen as representing
that the Spanish Republic was in its infancy, but that it was corrupted by fascism and the war,
democracy was frozen in time, not growing free from the deformity. In addition, as the bomb
symbolising war drops and the voice-over asks if a ghost is “Una tragedia condenada a
repetirse una y otra vez?” War is a tragedy often doomed to repeat itself and can be felt as an
instant of pain (“Un instante de dolo”) on a national as well as personal level. The on-going
conflicts in Spain, such as Basque separatist bombings, suggest that tragedies are repeating
themselves.
In summary we can see how Del Toro uses the Horror and Gothic genre in the film to
highlight social concepts. The fear and revulsion we feel at images in the film such as the
Copyright:
Emma Anne James for the Spanish Film Learning Initiative
Available at: www.spanishfilm.co.uk
ghost, the babies, the dark water, etc. help us understand the fears of people during the
Spanish Civil War. The director uses techniques that are typical of horror films as metaphors
for the horror of war. By linking the ghost to the bomb and by presenting events from the
perspective of a child Del Toro captures the emotional aspects of the conflict.
These are only possibilities but the main character Carlos is someone who is willing to
investigate events. He finds out why the orphanage is haunted and what cruelty caused
Santi’s ghost. In the same way the film investigates what is haunting Spanish culture. The
Gothic is used as an allegory for the trauma of war which has not been laid to rest.
Copyright:
Emma Anne James for the Spanish Film Learning Initiative
Available at: www.spanishfilm.co.uk