Director Guillermo Del Toro opens his 2001 film The Devil’s Backbone with a question:
The tragedy in question here referring to the gruesome murder of the young orphan boy
Santi, and the subsequent haunting of the orphanage by his restless ghost, in search
of recognition and justice.
But as Del Toro himself has stated, the drama that unfolds within the confines of this isolated
complex serves merely as a microcosm of the tragedy his question is really about…
The Spanish Civil War was a brutal conflict that gripped Spain by its throat between the
years of 1936 and 1939.
It was a war fought in countless places spanning the entire country, a struggle between the
Fascist Nationalist forces of soon to be Dictator General Francisco Franco, and Republican forces
which consisted mainly of communists, anarchists and democratic loyalists of the republican
government.
When the sounds of war were finally silenced on the 1st of April 1939, the Spanish Falangist-nationalist
flag hung victorious in the capital of Madrid, and it would remain there until the fall of
the regime with the death of Franco in 1975.
More than half a million lives were lost in the killing, around 450.000 would flee the
country.
Numbers only to be dwarfed by another War that would start only 5 months later.
The Spanish Civil War, due to its limited scope and the occurrence of the Second World
War, would quickly become but a side note in the minds of the international community.
But more importantly it was an event that, due to the indescribable savage killing between
former neighbors, friends and family, the people of Spain would choose to forget in
their national memory.
And it was exactly this conscious form of repression which brought director Guillermo
Del Toro to state that: “the civil war, which has never completely healed in Spain,
is a ghost, anything pending is a ghost” (del Toro with Spelling 2006).
In recognizing the lingering presence of this national trauma and the dangers of forgetting
one’s past, Del Toro decided to dedicate three films to engage, explain and find meaning
in this still sensitive topic: The first one, as I’ve mentioned, was what he called his
first real film, The Devil’s Backbone, the second one would come out four years later
in the form of Pan’s Labyrinth, and the third one in the trilogy is to this day still
to be announced.
Now it’s important to note that neither of these films are straightforward historical
war films.
The Devil’s Backbone, unfolding during the latter stages of the war, is a gothic ghost
story set in an orphanage, about the protagonist Carlos interacting with the ghost of the murdered
Santi.
Pan’s Labyrinth on the other hand, taking place in 1944, can be most accurately described
as the twisted fairy tale of the young Ofelia, a girl who explores a fantastical world with
the desire to return as a magical princess, a Peter Pan like eternal child of the underworld.
To cite Christopher Hartney, Del Toro’s decision to use the ‘fantastical to say
something profound about the historical’ makes sense, both these genres have historically
been utilized to explore and engage with chaos, trauma and the repressed parts of a culture
in the collective minds of its citizens.
In the words of Jungian psychoanalyst Donald Kalschek: “When human resources are unavailable,
(the archetypal myths of the collective human imagination) archetypal resources will present
themselves.”
In The Devil’s Backbone this is manifested through the looming presence of specters.
The first one being the ghost of Santi, an orphan boy murdered by the violent Jacinto,
the oldest orphan in the complex.
His death goes seemingly unrecognized by both the staff of the orphanage as well as the
other boys living there.
Jaime, the only witness to the murder has kept his mouth shut and any attempt to bring
up Santi’s fate is quickly shut down…
In fact, any mention of death or tragedy seems to have been deemed inappropriate by the leaders
of the orphanage...
Carlos, the protagonist of the story, is never told of the demise of his father on the frontline,
and the other kids still seem to be receiving letters from their parents, parents who haven’t
been alive since before the moment the boys respectively set foot on the desolate orphanage
grounds.
The second specter of the film can then be identified as the ongoing yet physically absent
civil war, or in more visual terms, the always lingering presence of the unexploded bomb
in the middle of the courtyard.
Dropped on the same night of Santi’s death, the device becomes spiritually connected to
the boy’s restless spirit and the looming presence of sudden death.
Both are physically dead and yet both are shown to be alive on a fantastical level,
and not unlike the unresolved trauma of the war, are asking for recognition and guiding
Carlos along the way in his search to find answers by engaging with these specters.
A similar thing happens in Pan’s Labyrinth, in which a fairy tale manifests itself in
the world of the young Ofelia in order for her to make sense of her life after the traumatic
death of her father and his replacement by the fascist Captain Vidal.
Ofelia has been forcefully thrusted into a world in which the realm of the fantastical
and immaterial have been all but forgotten.
We can see this in the Ofelia’s metaphorical tale of the magical rose of immortality, sitting
at the top of a mountain, slowly withering away as the people below have become too scared
of the poisonous thorns guarding it, having become obsessed with their fear of death and
pain (USE SHOT OF PEOPLE).
This mentality manifest itself all throughout the story, but it’s most evident in Captain
Vidal.
He places high value in all things material and orderly… but outright despises any story
that doesn’t align with his fascist ideology… or that isn’t grounded in the, what he calls,
reality of the world.
A reality that for Ofelia, is but a foreground for what lies underneath.
Right at the start of the movie we can already see that she notices things that others don’t
pay attention to or are just unable to see.
Ofelia’s replacing of the eye back into its proper place signifying the opening of
a new dimension.
In fact, Del Toro goes out of his way to depict how Captain Vidal purposely blinds his victims
time and again, until he himself is blinded at the end of the film, metaphorically depicting
that all these characters have been forcefully or unconsciously separated from the realm
of the fantastical.
And this is not unique to just Pan’s Labyrinth, in The Devil’s Backbone, the eye of the
antagonist Jacinto is also shown to be bloodshot, displaying his feelings of rage and lack of
clairvoyance.
The world of Vidal and Jacinto is one dominated by the material…
One that places rigid and often grey boundaries on what is accepted as the story of the nation
and of the culture, contrasted with the limitless roundness and colorfulness of the mythological
world.
Vidal’s story in particular is one dominated by time and his connected obsession with death,
always checking the watch his father gave him and physically living in a room that reminds
us of the inside of a clock, giving him somewhat of a resemblance to the time and death obsessed
Captain Hook in Peter Pan.
His sole purpose in life being to die a man on the battlefield like his father before
him and to have a son to do it all over again.
He is so certain of his beliefs that he can’t even conceive of any other outcomes…
In the words of Professor Jordan B Peterson…
To counter this worldview, Del Toro divides his fantastical worlds into a strictly masculine,
brotherly story, and a sisterly, feminine one.
Both can be seen as Jungian stories of self-maturation in absence of the proper archetypal parental
guides.
According to Prof. Jordan B Peterson’s research into recurring archetypal symbolism, we can
distinguish between the Great Father, often representing a society’s culture and order,
and the Great Mother, often representing the earth and the exploration of novelty.
Both these archetypes have a wise, benevolent side, and a tyrannical, destructive side.
The great mother provides the hero with the promise of a safe haven to fall back on as
he or she makes the journey into the unknown.
Her opposite is overprotective and always tries to shield the protagonist from facing
any adversity.
The wise father or king on the other hand protects the protagonist, instills confidence
and encourages him or her to face the unknown and to take self-responsibility as an individual.
His tyrannical side however, consumes the individual through jealousy and resentment
in order to sustain his power.
This particular archetype reveals itself in Ofelia’s encounter with the Pale Man, a
ghastly humanoid creature who guards a lavish feast and consumes the children who try to
eat from it.
Del Toro himself has stated that the Pale Man represents the power hungry fascism of
Captain Vidal, the elderly Francisco Franco and the Spanish Catholic Church, also visually
mirroring the monster with these characters as they dine on a similar lavish feast.
On a more general level however, the creature represents the tyrannical nature of totalitarianism
as a whole as Del Toro shows us a pile of children’s shoes, echoing the lost young
generation of the Holocaust and the Second World War.
In The Devil’s Backbone Jacinto functions as a similar tyrant.
Often shown in the same frame with the unexploded bomb, he is seen beating, cutting and eventually
even consciously mass murdering the other children in his feelings of power hungry rage
and resentment, revealing that he has always been the real ticking time bomb.
His violent behavior is also shown to be rubbing off on the children around him, which is depicted
through the character of Jaime, who mimics his destructive behavior during the better
first half of the film.
Even the orphanage itself seems to represent a place that consumes the maturation of its
children, with its entrance mimicking a mouth eating the children who enter.
Del Toro then seems to use this to make a cautionary statement about the psychology
behind the actions of his antagonist.
Jacinto was the first orphan to be adopted by Carmen and Dr. Caesars, who would serve
as his makeshift parents of sorts.
However, Carmen is seen engaging in a sort of Oedipal relationship with the boy and the
Dr. confesses that he has never been fully dedicated to his tasks.
On top of that Carmen is openly ashamed of the relationship and mocks the boy for his
lack of a fulfilled potential…
It is then perhaps no wonder that Jacinto’s stunted self-growth or lack of a kingdom,
gave rise to his feeling of rage and resentment that would fuel his desire to burn down his
shameful past.
So besides serving as a means of dealing with repressed trauma, both Carlos and Ofelia’s
fantastical journeys take on the role of cautionary archetypal tales of self-maturation and finding
purpose and meaning in the face of chaos.
Carlos and his friends masculine journey, is one of the development of unrelenting courage
to increasingly engage with the repressed and the unknown, learning to take self-responsibility
and ultimately taking on the tyrant with the help of lessons from history and a finally
enlightened wise father.
Ofelia’s journey on the other hand is a distinctly feminine one, or in the words of
Del Toro: … And that’s the reason why she accesses the magical realm
through her mother’s belly and why the film is littered with fallopian imagery, from the
faun’s head, to the old fig tree, to her bedframe.
But in order for Ofelia to return to the womb and become a princess she has to show courage,
defiance towards absolute authority, and most importantly, an ultimate act of selflessness
and self-sacrifice in service of an uninvited sibling…
So on a symbolical level, Ofelia has to prove herself to be the great mother in order for
her to be reborn as the princess.
But this doesn’t mean that Del Toro revises or sugarcoats history completely.
In fact, he actively seems make a point out of his trilogy’s opening question by using
similar story set-ups, mirroring certain previous events and even using the same motivations
and outfits for similar characters…
By the end of their journey, Carlos and his friends may have overcome the tyranny of Jacinto,
but they leave the orphanage traumatized and physically scarred, ultimately finding their
demise years later in Pan’s Labyrinth.
Ofelia on her part is still shot and killed by Captain Vidal, ironically fulfilling her
wish to remain a child forever.
But it’s exactly in this selfless act of protection that she makes room for an eventual
better future by refusing to be controlled by a pathological ideology and by giving her
brother, the generation that would eventually overthrow the fascist regime and who now has
both a foot in the material as well as the fantastical world, his kingdom that was previously
denied from Jacinto…
It’s through all of this that Del Toro ultimately expresses the power of the fantastical and
the archetypal.
Although his characters might be fated to remain kids forever, their memories forgotten
and repressed like the real life trauma of the Spanish Civil War, encapsulated in time
and nameless in their anonymity…
It’s exactly in our engagement with these fantastical tragedies, in the retelling and
revival of their archetypal symbolism that their lessons can reemerge into our own lives,
be it in the form of another famous eternal child and his group of Lost boys, facing off
against the time and death obsessed Captain Hook, or in the form of numerous gothic stories,
or in Del Toro’s own fantastical worlds.
Worlds that are asking to be explored, that force us to be honest with ourselves and our
reality, to have the courage to confront that what makes us uncomfortable, to recognize
the dangers and pitfalls along the way whilst trying to navigate ourselves into the right
path, to dive into the unknown, to be reborn, and then to do it all over again…