Before you see The Hobbit, meet the director

Before you head to your local cinema to catch The Hobbit, due for release in 2011, why not bone up the earlier work of its Mexican director, Guillermo del Toro, writes Stephen Foote.

Crikey

Apr 21, 2010

Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, much like Peter Jackson, is set to become a household name with the filming of Lord of the Rings prequel The Hobbit. This film, currently in pre-production, is expected to be released in 2011 for the first of the two parts.

Before you rush to your local cinema to catch this guaranteed blockbuster (well, rush is perhaps the wrong word, let’s say amble) why not bone up tonight on this director and some of his earlier work. Otherwise The Hobbit may come as a bit of an aesthetic surprise compared with Jackson’s epic trilogy.

Del Toro’s 2006 film Pan’s Labyrinth (or El laberinto del fauno), a dark fantasy film, was met with both commercial and critical success upon its release, winning accolades worldwide and receiving a mainstream cinema release despite being a foreign language film.

A fantastic film in its own right, it is also the spiritual succesor to del Toro’s virtually unknown 2001 film The Devil’s Backbone (El espinazo del Diablo), a supernatural fantasy themed thriller, and one of the originators of the recent wave of Spanish horror cinema such as The Orphanage and Rec (remade in the US as Quarantine).

The Devil’s Backbone is (without wanting to spoil the story) a tale of ghosts, gold, lust, murder and revenge from beyond the grave set in an orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. While this may sound like B-grade film material, del Toro, who both wrote and directed, guides the production artfully. The surrounding Spanish landscape provides a warm counterpoint to the chilling events taking place, invoking a sense of loneliness and desperation throughout. Del Toro is a director blessed with the ability to weave a story through image; even if you didn’t understand the film, you’d still get goosebumps.

Some might see The Devil’s Backbone as a mere practice run before Pan’s Labyrinth, but it’s great in its own right. Not only that but seeing it will provide plenty of “I liked his movies back when…” material. And allow the substantial directorial differences between del Toro and Jackson to come as less of a shock to any Lord of the Rings film fan simply expecting more of the same when The Hobbit comes out.

I can’t wait to see what del Toro has in store for The Hobbit, and after dipping into his back catalogue you probably won’t either.