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| Eduardo
Noriega, Marisa Paredes, Federico Luppi, Iñigo Garcés,
Fernando Tielve |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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opening narration: What is
a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An
instant of pain, perhaps. Something dead which still seems to be
alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph.
Like an insect trapped in amber.
During the Spanish Civil War, an orphaned
boy winds up at a remote boarding school where disturbing ghostly
appearances occur.
 Ghost
movies have been experiencing a renaissance since the disastrous
remake of Robert Wise's seminal ghost story The Haunting.
Following the smash success of The Sixth Sense, one might
expect one abysmal imitation after another, but instead, we have
been treated to the equally solid The Others and now another
Spanish-produced marvel: The Devil's Backbone. As in the
aforementioned English-language pictures, this Spanish-spoken
but hugely accessible tale puts children center stage in the ghostly
encounters. The young cast member prove themselves not only cute,
smart and gutsy, but also highly convincing players able to hold
an adult audience's attention effortlessly, and even with considerably
more conviction and credibility than the more well-known Spanish
box-office drawer Eduardo Noriega (familiar from Tesis
and Abre Los Ojos).
Mexican-born director Guillermo del Toro, who has directed mediocre
Hollywood fare like Mimic and Blade II since the
attention-grabbing vampire movie Cronos, again proves that
he has visual style to spare, his camera ceaselessly prowling,
swerving and swinging around the haunted boarding school, bathed
in gorgeous oranges and yellows by his regular cinematographer
Guillermo Navarro. For most of the film, the story's simplicity
is its strongest point, as its unity of action allows del Toro
to focus his attention on telling the story as effectively as
possible. The narrative however fails to sustain the film's full
running time, making the final twenty minutes or so somewhat anticlimactic
due to the finale's predictability and the one-note performances
from the gang of villains. But The Devil's Backbone is
certainly a worthy entry in the recently rekindled ghost movie
subgenre and one that deserves a wider audience.
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The Region 1 version has an anamorphic
transfer and some extras including an audio commentary track from
the director. The Region 2 release available in the UK has a non-anamorphic
widescreen transfer, no commentary but several other featurettes.
The Dutch Region 2 release, which served as the basis for this review,
has the same non-anamorphic transfer and no extras apart from the
trailer.
The non-anamorphic widescreen image
is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 1.85:1. The fact that this
transfer was not anamorphically enhanced is doubly surprising, as
not only is its Region 1 counterpart - which was released earlier
- anamorphic in nature, but it has also long been Warner Home Entertainment's
sworn policy in Europe to release all widescreen DVD titles with
anamorphic enhancement. It's something of a missed opportunity in
this case, as the non-anamorphic presentation on this release is
in fact so good, it could easily have been absolute reference-level
material had it had the proper increase in resolution that comes
from anamorphic enhancement. Colors are bright, solid and gorgeous,
while the transfer boasts strong detail and excellent definition,
unhindered either by edge enhancement or compression artifacts.
When it comes down to a choice between this presentation and the
anamorphic Region 1 release, it may actually be a toss-up, as the
Region 1 DVD apparently has much stronger edge enhancement and also
has fewer lines of resolution due to it being NTSC.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound mix is just the right kind of subtle surround
mix to create an eerie atmosphere throughout by sparing but excellent
use of the full surround stage, interspersed by sudden bursts of
frenetic audio activity. A master soundtrack, skillfully mixed and
impeccably presented.
Neither the audio commentary from
the Region 1 release nor the wide range of featurettes from the
UK version have been included on the Dutch/Belgian DVD, making the
theatrical trailer the only extra. An unforgivable shame. The
animated menu screen is good for a sudden jolt to the system with
its clever scare effect, though it does give away one of the film's
strong shock moments.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed:
February 7, 2003
Click
here for IMDB info on The
Devil's Backbone.
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