Harry here in the midst of finishing several articles all at once, one of the pieces I'm finishing up is my DEVIL'S BACKBONE review. This film by Guillermo Del Toro is his strongest work to date. Far better than MIMIC, and though CRONOS is great, I feel THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE is closer to who Guillermo is as a person and a storyteller than either of the other two films. I'll explain that statement further in my review, as for now... Here's The Prankster in Toronto....
Hello, Prankster here again. Thought I'd send a few more (hopefully brief)
Toronto FF reviews.
Life As A House
Directed by Irwin Winkler, Starring Kevin Kline, Kristen Scott Thomas, Hayden Christensen.
Life is a House is about George, a professional architectural model-builder played by Kevin Kline, who's divorced and lives alone in a rotting shack in an otherwise nice neighbourhood, with a ludicrously panoramic view of the ocean. His wife (Scott Thomas) is remarried and has a couple more children with her new husband, but Sam (Christensen), her teenage son from her marriage with Kline, is rebellious and troubled.
One day George is fired and finds out right afterwards that he has four months or so to live. Actually, he just figures it out on his own from the fact that "no one's even tried to treat me". Huh? I had a relative die of cancer, and they were always having drugs given to them up til the final moments. And how did he arrive at the four month figure?!? Bah.
Anyway, George uses all the money he can scrape up, pension included, and decides to spend the summer building a house with his son, without telling anyone that he's dying. Of course, Sam is an awful, whiny brat who hates being saddled with his deadbeat dad, and dramatic friction ensues!
The filmmakers let us know that Sam is fed up in several ways. He listens to Marilyn Manson. He's a goth with piercings. He makes a number of extremely inept and halfhearted suicide attempts. He does drugs. And oh yeah, he's on the verge of being recruited as a gay man-whore. But don't worry, a summer building a house with dad will make a man out of him! Hup ho!
At this point I was about ready to walk out, especially since I was only seeing this movie on a whim (couldn't get into Prozac Nation). Aside from the fine performances (including a good, but not revelatory, one from our future Anakin) it was borderline offensive, manipulative Hollywood balderdash, loaded with trite speeches and a pathetic conception of Troubled Youth (not to mention incredibly belabored metaphors about tearing down an old house and building a new one--I don't think you'll find it hard to figure out what this is supposed to signify.)
But, a funny thing happened. As the second act wore on, the plot suddenly focused on a number of the supporting characters, took several surprising turns, and gradually ditched the overt sentimentality. It also stopped patronizing the characters, taking a warmer and more compassionate view towards them (except for one cardboard cut-out). I *am* a sucker for stories about people who attempt to bring people together and increase their shared happiness (as long as they're not heavy-handed or preachy about it), and this movie made building a house look pretty cool. Ultimately, with the triteness out of the way, it became a much more effective tearjerker because people weren't moping and speechifying.
Think of American Beauty if Lester had tried to help everyone who was
miserable instead of just being a self-absorbed pleasure-seeker. In fact,
this movie almost comes off like a more life-affirming counterpoint to
'Beauty'. It's a manly-man emotional drama like Field of Dreams or
Frequency. On the whole, apart from that lame first half hour, a decent
enough flick, and if you're a big ol‚ softie like me it should penetrate
your cynicism. The audience was unquestionably bawling away...but Toronto
audiences are known for their, er, enthusiasm.
El Espinazo De Diablo (The Devil's Backbone)
Directed by Guillermo Del Toro, Starring a number of Spanish kids I'm too tired to look up, no disrespect intended.
With "The Sixth Sense" and "The Others" being hits, it seems ghost stories are back in vogue. Unfortunately, since this movie is in Spanish and stars no one famous, it probably won't take off. Which is too bad, because "The Devil's Backbone" speaks to the biggest complaint most people had about the two above movies: "Too slow paced."
"Backbone" is a pretty rip-roaring story that moves about as fast as I'd have thought it possible for a ghost story to move if I hadn't seen "The Frighteners". It's set in Spain during WWII (or possibly just before or after--during an uprising of some sort, anyway. I wish I knew more Spanish history.) Carlos is a young boy who's taken to a special school for orphans in the middle of the desert, not realizing that his dad has been killed fighting for the rebels. It's a distinctly odd place, run by the kindly Dr. Cavaros and a headmistress with a wooden leg whose husband founded the place and left her a fortune in gold. One of the oddest features is the huge bomb standing upright in the middle of the courtyard, having been dropped some time ago but not going off, and being too heavy to move. The children speak to it as if it were some kind of pagan god, and aren't entirely sure it won't still go off some day. Oh yeah, and then there's the ghost.
"The One Who Sighs" is a rumour among the kids, but Carlos sees it's real pretty quickly. He seems to be the ghost of a boy named Santi, who disappeared the day the bomb fell, and he terrifies Carlos with his repeated statement: "Many of you will be killed." Del Toro actually lets the ghost be seen quite clearly, which works thanks to some neat effects; the boy was hit on the head and drowned in a pool, and whenever he appears he's surrounded by dancing bubbles and a cloud of blood that drifts upwards.
This is a very effective chiller, with some great performances, especially the actor playing the doctor. Carlos is a very talented kid, too. There's a real heart in these stories being told amongst the characters; they're all very nicely fleshed out and memorable.
More impressive is Del Toro's work. I enjoyed some of the innovative ideas in Chronos and Mimic, but both of those films felt just a tad underdone in terms of a completed story; it was more like a series of scattered images and characters who didn't do much. Here we get a much more engaging tale, gripping us right from the start, with the story being fleshed out well and quickly. I also liked the way Del Toro moved the camera, in big, sweeping tracks and pans a la "Touch of Evil", giving us the feeling that we're floating through the school, taking everything in. And the cinematography is terrific.
Already I think I like it better than "The Others". It's a top-notch genre effort, reminscent of John Carpenter, Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson's best work, and with a strong human touch that's very engaging.
Prankster out...
