Orfanato, El' (Orphanage, The)
Runtime: 105min 36secsTagline: No secret stays locked away forever.
Language: Spanish (with English subtitles)
Written by: Sergio G. Sánchez
Directed by: Juan Antonio Bayona
Plot Outline:
The Orphanage centers on a Laura (Belén Rueda) who purchases her beloved childhood orphanage with dreams of restoring and reopening the long abandoned facility as a place for disabled children.
Upon moving into the cavernous and hauntingly beautiful home, Laura, with her physician husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo), discover that the new environment awakens their adopted son (Roger Príncep) Simóns' imagination as he becomes acquainted with six imaginary friends.
However, Simón has always had imaginary friends, both Laura and Carlos play along with his stories, assuming this will be fixed automatically once other children arrive in his life, but the ongoing fantasy games he plays with these invisible friends quickly turn into something more disturbing, when Simón one day disappears.
Upon seeing her family increasingly threatened by the strange occurrences in the house, Laura looks to a group of parapsychologists & the police for help in unraveling the mystery that has taken over the place. Eventually, the desperate mother reluctantly agrees to explore the orphanage for supernatural clues to her son's disappearance.
Overall Impressions:
I think there are a number of people out there comparing this to Pan's Labyrinth and to be honest I think that's sort of unfair. The only credit Del Toro here is a 'presents' credit. He had bugger-all to do with the rest as far as I can tell & both are great films, but miles apart also. I think some of the posters for this flick has been misleading perhaps, in attempting to mimic the Pan's fantasy feel. This is less about the mysterious world but rather, ghosts.
In a world of gore & torture labeled as horror, the old skool creepy antics hold up as the superior flavour of product. This in itself is a refreshing surprise. I suppose, we have to go to foreign films for this sort of refreshment these days. It has a number of jumpy moments, and even with the number of films I watch they caught me unaware. In addition to this, I found the whole resolution process had me in a state of continuous surprise, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.
I was constantly taken aback at the way the story progressed, piecing together previous scenes to make my own theories on what's going on & being disproved, repeatedly. I tip my hat in the direction of the makers here.
A ghost story with a logical resolution as well as a super-natural one, but this satisfying resolution is merely one of it's strengths amongst many. A total must-watch!
Completely agree. I was totally impressed with this little picture and particularly amazed at how they managed to create such great tension from such a small story. That's what I call good film making!