Amazing, satisfying, sad, NOT TO BE MISSED

Rating: 9/10 (25 January 2008)

Now this is downright rude: Orfanato, El 2007 (The Orphanage) is an outstanding film. Yet, I hesitate to recommend it and that galls me. Hollywood offers what I consider to be uber-violent trash. Anyway you Saw it, even on Friday the 13th, a Hostel is just another Chainsaw Massacre in Texas. Some imported flicks are equally violent and sadly waste good story and/or characters for heaps of blood, guts, gore, etc.
"The Orphanage" is mild by comparison but it presents troubling themes  harm to children and suicide.
Director Juan Antonio Bayona subtly leads, letting viewers observe an old orphanage and some of its inhabitants. Ah: the house, the outdoors and sky are wonderfully black, gray and white. A small item of plot arrives courtesy of an observer. The film moves to modern day where the deliciously Gothic building now belongs to a former occupant, her husband and their adopted little boy. A beautiful abandoned lighthouse peers over its realm from atop a nearby suitably rocky cliff. The surf of this coastal setting crashes menacingly, lapping at the entrance to a cave to be explored. A party honors special needs children similar to those to be given haven in this restored house but the festivities are interrupted by the beginning of a delicious ghost story. From there to the imminently satisfying last scene, the tension mounts, the protagonist suffers a loss and the filmic journey suffers not one misstep. Director Bayona, the photographers and production designers combine classic horror items and throw in a few quirks. Some incidental items are strongly colored amidst all the gray. Ominous skies and sound design immerse in atmosphere. Actress Belin Rueda is Laura, a woman wanting to honor her childhood by helping other children. She is a quiet presence able to convey much with just a gesture, a flash of eye or a mouth movement. The rest of the cast ably supports Sra Rueda. How wonderful it is that the screenplay from Sergio Sanchez receives such professional treatment. Somehow no Hollywood committee, marketer or focus group befoul the flick. We owe Producer and Presenter Guillermo del Toro a debt of gratitude for bringing this Spanish wonder to the states. "The Orphanage" is a sad story of loss and betrayal deliciously presented and offered to anyone willing to brave the premise. This is a first class cinematic horror story.