El Orfanato

Intelligence Dominates Shocks and Thrills in Spanish Mystery

Although “Atonement” has still not opened in Grand Forks, two limited-release films that are currently on even fewer screens across the U.S. suddenly showed up last Friday, and at the Carmike 10, of all places. Whether this is a calculated pre-emptive booking by Carmike now that they finally have some competition in town from an independent multiplex that has announced plans to support “art films,” whether it’s because they happened to have a couple of available screens when extra copies happened to be available to play, or whether it’s merely a fortuitous fluke remains to be seen.

“The Kite Runner” is has been out for over a month nationally, but nearly doubled its screen count to 715 last week, making it here for its fifth weekend of release. The Spanish-language hit “El Orfanato” ("The Orphanage") opened in Spain last year and has played some American film festivals during 2007, but did not get an official U.S. release until December 28, when it opened on 19 screens just in time to qualify for the Academy Award nominations. Positive response led to an expansion of 50 more screens the following week and a jump up to 707 screens last weekend, when it found its way to Grand Forks amidst all the standard Hollywood product with 2000 to 3000-print releases.

“The Orphanage” has been misleadingly marketed in the United States as a horror thriller. Although it contains some familiar situations and imagery from the genre, it is actually a skillful blend of psychological suspense, mystery-thriller, and emotional character drama. Some might compare its ghost-story plot to “The Sixth Sense,” but its supernatural overtones, gradual revelations, and double surprise ending are really quite different.

Unlike “The Sixth Sense” or just about any American horror film, “The Orphanage” presents its material in such a way that one can interpret it either as a genuine supernatural story involving troubled ghosts or simply as an active imagination on the part of characters who are heavily influenced by their surroundings and ominous discoveries they make about its history. There is the inevitable murder mystery behind everything, but the story is more about character, love, and self-discovery than it is about spooky shocks (which it still manages to insert from time to time, although with a notable lack of gore and very little blood).

Spanish TV star Belén Rueda is excellent as Laura, a woman who with her husband buys the long-deserted orphanage that she grew up in, planning to turn it into a home for a half-dozen handicapped children, as well as their own seven-year-old adopted son Simón, who has been diagnosed with HIV.

The lonely little boy, nicely played by Roger Príncep, has always had a couple of imaginary friends. Once they move in, however, he finds several new invisible playmates, who like Peter Pan and the lost boys can never grow up, he informs his parents. These playmates are telling him things and leading him places that worry his mother, especially after a mysterious old woman who claims to be a social worker shows up one night. After Simón disappears one day, Laura is distraught, eventually calling in a medium (a brief but memorable role for Geraldine Chaplin) to contact the ghosts her son claimed to have seen.

The plot unfolds with a slow, deliberate establishing of characters and location, followed by building of tension peppered with the requisite surprises, along with some predictable twists and others completely unexpected. It’s all effectively handled in only 98 minutes of screen time by first-time director Juan Antonio Bayona and first-time screenwriter Sergio G. Sanchez. Lending his name to the film as one of the producers is noted director Guillermo del Toro ("Pan’s Labyrinth").

While it’s certainly not a children’s movie, in the U.S. “The Orphanage” has unaccountably been rated R. Apparently this is “for some disturbing content,” but more likely was intended to aid marketing to unsuspecting horror fans. Perhaps was decided by meddling politically correct sensibilities hoping to “protect” unsuspecting children whose parents simply do not comprehend the concept of “Parental Guidance” as applying to “PG” or “PG-13” movies. On the other hand, it may be some sort of MPAA idea than anyone under 17 must need an older guardian who knows how to read fast enough to interpret the subtitles.

“The Orphanage/El Orfanto” is another of the impressive films from Spain to come out in recent years, well-worth seeing and likely a strong contender for “Best Foreign Film” when Oscars come around. It’s amazing it is already in Grand Forks, and with any luck it presages local screenings of titles like “Atonement,” “The Savages,” “Bella,” “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” “Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead,” and other non-mainstream pictures.