The Orphanage

Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican director of last year’s “Pan’s Labyrinth,” schmoozed with well wishers  at last week’s Orphanage premiere at the National Arts Club while the star Belen Rueda mugged for photographers in an exquisite beaded Carolina Herrera cocktail dress. A producer and “presenter” of “The Orphanage,” Guillermo is “god” to a new generation of Spanish filmmakers, director Juan Antonio Bayona in his debut feature and screenwriter Sergio G. Sanchez with his debut feature length screenplay. “The Orphanage” was selected for the 2007 New York Film Festival in September and is now screening theatrically here but already in Guillermo del ToroSpain, it is the highest grossing film since it opened there on October 11. This is one scary movie: a haunted house, masked children, homemade dolls, a medium (played by Geraldine Chaplin), and one hysterical mother (Rueda). The themes tend toward the psychological: survivor’s guilt, loss, or as Guillermo sees it “Peter Pan” meets “The Turn of the Screw.” The Peter Pan idea seemed most provocative to the young filmmakers, obsessed with a “Wendy” character and her inability to accept the true responsibilities of motherhood. To our American sensibilities, “The Orphanage” belongs to the genre of a well-made horror flick, akin to “The Others;” for these post-Spanish Civil War filmmakers, literally busting into an international filmmaking arena, this movie is an impressive debut indeed.

Regina Weinreich                            Graphic Design: Salpeter Ventura

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