Gateway Cinephiles

3-Minute Intro: The Orphanage (El Orfanato)

Screened: October 17, 2008
Format: Blu-Ray - Picturehouse (2008)
HorrorFest 2008

It’s probably overstatement to suggest that Juan Anontio Bayona’s 2007 directorial debut, The Orphanage, would not have been possible without the box-office and critical triumph of Pan’s Labyrinth in 2006, but the latter film’s success certainly didn’t hurt. Not only did Guillermo del Toro’s fantasy film enhance the receptiveness of audiences to Spanish-language gothic cinema, but the director’s role as a producer for The Orphanage was prominently featured in the film’s promotion. Fortunately for Bayona, his film successfully escapes from del Toro’s shadow, delivering a chilling and harrowing update on reliable horror conventions now mostly absent from American films.

Bayona and screenwriter Sergio Sánchez provide us with a landscape that is familiar, but also realized with efficiency and a pitch-perfect gothic sensibility. The essential elements for a conventional ghost story are all present: a creepy old house, a sensitive little child, buried secrets, a séance, and a protagonist driven to the brink of desperation and madness. What makes The Orphanage an adept piece of horror film-making is Bayona’s assumption that we understand and appreciate the traditions of the genre. He stacks the film with dense layers of mystery, and packs in crucial details that reward viewers willing to pay attention and able to keep up.

The Orphanage was the first feature film for Bayona, who established himself directing music videos for Spanish pop groups. The director’s flair for evoking a classically gothic atmosphere abounds, as does his talent for absorbing and revisiting iconic ghost story devices in a refreshing manner. For the critical leading role of Laura, Bayona turned to Spanish actor Belén Rueda, who won a Goya award for her performance in director Alejandro Amenábar’s 2004 Oscar-winner The Sea Inside. Despite The Orphanage’s admittedly moody and gorgeous trappings, it is undeniably Rueda’s engaging performance as Laura that holds the film together. Rueda’s convoluted portrayal—compassionate, arrogant, fearful, resolute, neurotic—creates an absorbing study of parenting and grief that dwells within a sharply executed haunted house tale for the twenty-first century. In addition to Bayona’s skill in handling a story laden with twists and sleight-of-hand, it is the strength of Rueda’s performance that lends such anguish and horror to The Orphanage’s final revelations.