Original Post Date: 12.26.16
SPOILERS AHEAD. Stop reading if you have not seen The Devil’s Backbone (2001).
Jacinto is heartless, methodical, and on a mission. A mission fueled by greed and loneliness. A strong and willing man, destined to fight alone, and die alone.
Jacinto is the main villain in The Devil’s Backbone and what a horrible man he is. Along the way of his plan of stealing the gold from Santa Lucia School for orphans, he makes several mistakes, one of them been the accidental murder of Santi, a young orphan who was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Jacinto, afraid of anything getting on his way, hides the body, or rather, drowns the dying body of innocent Santi.
Jacinto goes as far as burning down the school in a failed and desperate attempt of finally getting to the gold. The gold is more valuable than the kids’ lives, than his honor, than his lover, than himself.
Jacinto gets the gold, but his greed blinds him from danger and in the end is overpowered by the same kids he had tried to kill. Jacinto and Santi meet again in a terrifying way. And the gold? It ends up at the bottom of the water pit, with him.
The Devil’s Backbone was a frightening and poetic movie from mastermind Guillermo del Toro, and it closed with a beautiful monologue from Dr. Casares who answered the question, “What is a ghost?”
“Un fantasma. Ese soy yo.”
- Marath