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The Orphanage (film)
Encyclopedia
The Orphanage is a 2007 Spanish-Mexican horror film
and the debut feature of Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona
. The film stars Belén Rueda
as Laura, Fernando Cayo as her husband, Carlos, and Roger Príncep as their adopted son Simón. The plot centers on Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an orphanage. Laura plans to turn the house into a home for disabled children, but a problem arises when she and Carlos realize that Simón believes he has a masked friend named Tomás with whom he will run away. After an argument with Laura, Simón is found to be missing.
The film's script was written by Sergio G. Sánchez
in 1996 and brought to the attention of Bayona in 2004. Bayona asked his long-time friend, director Guillermo del Toro
, to help produce the film and to double its budget and filming time. Bayona wanted the film to capture the feel of 1970s Spanish cinema
; he cast Geraldine Chaplin
and Belén Rueda
, who were later praised for their roles in the film.
The film opened at the Cannes Film Festival
on May 20, 2007. It received critical acclaim from audiences in its native Spain, winning seven Goya awards
. On its North American release, The Orphanage was praised by English speaking critics, who described the film as well directed and acted, and noted the film's lack of "cheap scares", so New Line Cinema
bought the rights to the film for an American remake.
) returns to the dilapidated orphanage where she grew up, accompanied by her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and their seven-year-old adopted son, Simón (Roger Príncep). Her plan is to reopen the orphanage as a facility for disabled children. Once there, Simón claims to see a boy named Tomás, whom he befriends and draws as a child wearing a sack mask. A social worker, Benigna Escobeda (Montserrat Carulla
), visits the orphanage, telling Laura that she has Simón's adoption file, which includes the fact that Simón is HIV
-positive. Incensed at Benigna's intrusion, Laura sends her away. That night, Laura finds Benigna snooping around her coal shed, but Benigna escapes before Laura can confront her. Later, Simón teaches Laura a type of scavenger hunt game that Tomás taught him. The game involves hiding a person's possessions, with the player who recovers his final possession winning a wish. While playing the game, the clues lead to Simón's adoption file with an angry Simón saying his new friends told him that Laura is not his real mother and that he knows he is going to die.
During a children's party at the orphanage, Laura and Simón argue, and Simón hides from her. While searching for him, Laura is confronted by a boy in a sack mask with the name "Tomás" embroidered onto his shirt. The boy traps her in a bathroom, and when she escapes she finds that Simón is missing, and searches for him throughout the house and outside. The hunt leads her to a cave where she trips and injures herself. At a medical center, the police psychologist, Pilar, suggests to Laura and Carlos that Benigna may have abducted Simón. That night at home, a bedridden Laura hears unexplained banging in the walls.
Six months later, while searching in a snowy city in Northern Spain, Laura and Carlos spot Benigna pushing a baby carriage downtown. As Laura calls out to her, Benigna is suddenly hit and killed by a speeding bus. Laura rushes to Benigna's carriage, but finds only a doll wearing Tomás' sack mask. The police search Benigna's home and find evidence revealing that Benigna worked at the orphanage long ago and that she had a son named Tomás who was at the orphanage. He wore a sack-like mask over his head due to his deformity and was housed away from the other children in a separate room. Tomás was accidentally killed by the children of the orphanage who stole his mask near a beach cave, which is accessible at low tide. Embarrassed, Tomás hid in the cave, resulting in his death by drowning. In desperation, Laura goes to a medium
named Aurora (Geraldine Chaplin
), seeking clues to her son's disappearance. With clues from the medium, Laura searches the orphanage grounds and discovers the remains of the orphans she grew up with who were killed by Benigna and stored in sacks of bone and ashes that were hidden inside the coal storage outside the house.
Unable to cope with the situation, Carlos leaves the orphanage as Laura promises him she will be done in two days. Laura recreates the original orphanage layout and attempts to contact the ghost children. She soon begins to see them around her when she initiates a game of "Uno, Dos, Tres, Toca la Pared" [One, Two, Three, Knock on the Wall; similar to Red Light, Green Light in the United States], which she used to play while growing up at the orphanage. The ghosts lead her to a hidden door within a cupboard under the stairs (La Casita de Tomas; Tomás' "little house" which Simón referred to just before his disappearance). This door leads to a hidden basement room. In the room, she sees Simón alive and hugs him in a blanket. As the ghost children vanish, Laura finds that the blanket is empty and the body of the deceased Simón, wearing Tomás' mask, lies behind her. She realizes that she had inadvertently caused Simón's death (she had accidentally blocked the hidden door to the basement where he was playing, trapping him inside), and that the unexplained noises she had heard were Simón trying to get out. At one point Laura had heard a loud crash which had been Simon falling through the stair railing, and onto the ground below, breaking his neck. Laura carries Simón's body upstairs and swallows many handfuls of Trankimazin
capsules, begging to be with Simón again. Laura's wish is granted as the ghosts of the dead children appear and Simón returns to life in Laura's arms. Simón then tells Laura that his wish was for her to stay and take care of all the orphans. Later, Carlos walks alone over to the memorial for Laura, Simón, and the orphans which stand outside the orphanage. Carlos returns to the orphans' old bedroom and finds a St. Anthony medallion, that he had given to Laura. He hears the door opening; as he looks up he slowly smiles.
in 1996. Sánchez was not sure why he chose to write a genre film for the screenplay, as he explains, "I ended up writing a film in the style of those I liked as a kid, movies like Poltergeist, The Omen
, and Rosemary's Baby
which I ruined on the first VCR we owned at home." Sánchez revealed the literary influences underlying his writing of the script, such as The Turn of the Screw
and Peter Pan
. Sánchez originally wanted to direct the script but he was repeatedly turned down by various Spanish production companies. While Sánchez was working on the short film 7337 in 2004, he met with director Juan Antonio Bayona
and offered him the script to direct. Bayona accepted the opportunity because he felt that a fantasy
themed script like that of The Orphanage would allow him freedom as a director, saying the fantasy genre was a great tool for learning as it "allows manipulation of space and time as we wish or the use of certain camera moves with an immediate efficiency".
Bayona cut parts of the script, including the outcome of the other orphanage children, because he wanted to focus on the character of Laura and what happens to her. To create the film as he wanted, Bayona had to double both the film's budget and the amount of filming time. To accomplish this, Bayona received help from fellow film director
Guillermo del Toro
, whom he had met at Festival de Cine de Sitges
when del Toro was presenting his film Cronos
(1993). Del Toro offered to co-produce the film as soon as he learned about it. For the rest of his crew, Bayona worked with his regular team that he worked with on commercials and music videos.
in the lead. Del Toro admired this choice as he appreciated her as an actress and that Bayona was casting her against the genre. Bayona admired her after seeing her performance as Julia in Alejandro Amenabar
's The Sea Inside. Bayona had Rueda watch The Innocents and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
to prepare for the role. Another role Bayona desired for the film was to have Geraldine Chaplin
as the role of Aurora the medium. Bayona stated that he wanted the film to have "the mood of 70s Spanish cinema
and Geraldine starred in one of the best movies of that decade, Carlos Saura
's The Secret of Anna
, as the ghost of the mother. It made sense to have her play the medium." Bayona was nervous about filming with Chaplin. To break the ice, on the first day of shooting with her Bayona hid under a bed and grabbed her leg when she knelt down in the dark. Chaplin's scream in the film is her genuine surprise of her being grabbed. The role of Simón by Roger Príncep was one of the first test-screenings for the role. Bayona went through over four-hundred children over two months before making his choice. Edgar Vivar
was cast for role of Balabán. Bayona knew Vivar through his work on the Mexican television series El Chavo
and sent him an invitation for the role through e-mail.
, Asturias
. This location was chosen due to the area's diverse natural settings that include beaches, caves, cliffs, forests, a small village, and the Partarríu Manor where the orphanage scenes take place. The orphanage was an old colonial house
from the end of the nineteenth century. Bayona wanted to use certain cinematographic
techniques that were impossible to achieve in the house, so several parts of the house were reconstructed in sound stages. After four weeks in Llanes, the team moved to Barcelona
to finish up the last ten weeks of filming in sound stages, making over 80% of the film there. Bayona showed the films La residencia and The Innocents to his director of photography
on the film, to make special notice of the Scope lensing used in both films.
The Orphanage premiered at the Cannes Film Festival
on May 20, 2007. The film was positively received with a ten-minute ovation from the audience. The film's Spanish debut took place at the Sitges Film Festival on October 4, 2007 where it opened the festival. The Orphanage had a wide release in Spain on October 11, 2007 and was immensely successful in Spain after an $8.3 million four-day launch from 350 screens. The film was the second highest-grossing debut ever for a Spanish film and was the biggest opening of the year, making it even larger than the worldwide success of the Spanish-Mexican film Pan's Labyrinth
. It opened in limited release
in the United States on December 28, 2007 and had a wide release on January 11, 2008. It opened in Mexico on January 25, 2008 and earned over $11,000,000 at the box office.
In Spain, the film was nominated for 14 Goya Awards
, including Best Picture and ended up winning awards for Best Art Direction, Best Director of Production, Best Makeup and Hair, Best New Director, Best Screenplay - Original, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Special Effects. The Orphanage was chosen by the Spanish Academy of Films as Spain's nominee for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, but ultimately did not end up as one of the five final nominees in that category.
The Orphanage was picked up by Picturehouse at the Berlin Film Festival for American distribution.
and Blu-ray
on April 22, 2008 for a Region 1 release by New Line Cinema
. Both discs featured the same bonus features. A Region 2 version was released on DVD by Optimum Releasing
on July 21, 2008.
bought the rights to produce an English-language remake with Guillermo del Toro
as producer. On remakes, director Bayona noted that "The Americans have all the money in the world but can't do anything, while we can do whatever we want but don't have the money" and "The American industry doesn't take chances, that's why they make remakes of movies that were already big hits". On 4 August 2009, Larry Fessenden
was announced as the director of the American remake. Fessenden was later announced that he will not be involved with directing the remake, stating "Working on the script with Guillermo was a very exciting experience, but then I got into a casting miasma and that's where the thing is; I think they're gonna do it another way, actually. So I think I'm out of it. Hopefully they'll still use my script, but I'm not sure I'm directing it anymore". In January 2010, Mark Pellington
replaced Larry Fessenden
as director of the project.
reported that 86% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 146. At Metacritic
, which assigns a normalized
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
score of 74, based on 33 reviews. Critics praised the film for its lack of cheap scares. Film critic for the Chicago Sun Times Roger Ebert
approved of the film claiming it to be "deliberately aimed at viewers with developed attention spans. It lingers to create atmosphere, a sense of place, a sympathy with the characters, instead of rushing into cheap thrills". Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic echoed this statement noting, "Bayona never lets The Orphanage descend into cheap horror. The scares here are expertly done and, placed in the context of Laura's state of mind, well-earned, perhaps even explainable (or not)." Peter Howell of the Toronto Star
wrote, "The year's best horror picture is also one of the simplest. The Orphanage makes little if any use of digital tricks to present its numerous terrors." The casting of Chaplin and Rueda was praised while the role of Carlos was called dull. Goodykoontz noted the role of Carlos, saying "Cayo is rather pedestrian as Carlos, but he isn't given that much to do". Michael Phillips
of the Chicago Tribune
shared this opinion saying, "Rueda has a great pair of peepers for this assignment. When she looks one way and then the other, while skulking through the hallways of her childhood home, every nerve-wracking whatwasthat? registers, and how. Cayo is pretty dull by comparison, but Chaplin certainly is not." Liam Lacey of The Globe & Mail praised Rueda stating, "The strongest appeal of the film is the brooding, intense performance by Spanish actress, Belen Rueda." The Orphanage listed as one of the top 10 best films of 2007 by several critics, including Lawrence Toppman of the Charlotte Observer, Marc Doyle of Metacritic
and Tasha Robinson of The Onion
. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker
included the film on his top ten list of 2008.
There were few negative reviews, and those that were negative were not in agreement. A negative review came from Lacey of The Globe & Mail, who felt that at "[the film's] core, it seems intended as a sympathetic drama of a bereaved mother, who may have slipped into madness. What's even more disquieting is the persistent undercurrent of exploitation - the mixture of grief and jarring shock effects and the pitiless use of a disfigured child as a source of horror." A.O. Scott of The New York Times
claimed the film to be a "diverting, overwrought ghost story" and that it "relies on basic and durable horror movie techniques". Jack Matthews of New York Daily News found the ending of the film to be one of the worst of the season, but praised the acting of Belén Rueda
.
was composed by Fernando Velázquez and released on compact disc by Rhino Records in Spain. The score for the film was nominated for film awards including the Goya Award for Best Score. The soundtrack has not been released locally in North America or the United Kingdom and is only available by import.
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
and the debut feature of Spanish filmmaker J.A. Bayona
Juan Antonio Bayona
Juan Antonio Bayona is a Spanish film director. In addition to directing television commercials and music videos, Bayona is best known for directing his acclaimed horror film The Orphanage. Bayona is currently signed to create two films: Hater and The Impossible.-Career:Bayona grew up with a...
. The film stars Belén Rueda
Belén Rueda
María Belén Rueda García-Porrero is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her roles as Lucía in the TV series Los Serrano, as Julia in The Sea Inside, for which she won a Goya Award and as Laura in The Orphanage for which she received another Goya Award nomination...
as Laura, Fernando Cayo as her husband, Carlos, and Roger Príncep as their adopted son Simón. The plot centers on Laura, who returns to her childhood home, an orphanage. Laura plans to turn the house into a home for disabled children, but a problem arises when she and Carlos realize that Simón believes he has a masked friend named Tomás with whom he will run away. After an argument with Laura, Simón is found to be missing.
The film's script was written by Sergio G. Sánchez
Sergio G. Sánchez
Sergio G. Sánchez is a Spanish director and screenwriter.Sánchez has written and directed his own screenplays for short films such as Temporada baja and 7337 ....
in 1996 and brought to the attention of Bayona in 2004. Bayona asked his long-time friend, director Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...
, to help produce the film and to double its budget and filming time. Bayona wanted the film to capture the feel of 1970s Spanish cinema
Cinema of Spain
The art of motion-picture making within the nation of Spain or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish Cinema.In recent years, Spanish cinema has achieved high marks of recognition as a result of its creative and technical excellence...
; he cast Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
and Belén Rueda
Belén Rueda
María Belén Rueda García-Porrero is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her roles as Lucía in the TV series Los Serrano, as Julia in The Sea Inside, for which she won a Goya Award and as Laura in The Orphanage for which she received another Goya Award nomination...
, who were later praised for their roles in the film.
The film opened at the Cannes Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
on May 20, 2007. It received critical acclaim from audiences in its native Spain, winning seven Goya awards
Goya Awards
The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards....
. On its North American release, The Orphanage was praised by English speaking critics, who described the film as well directed and acted, and noted the film's lack of "cheap scares", so New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
bought the rights to the film for an American remake.
Plot
In Spain, Laura (Belén RuedaBelén Rueda
María Belén Rueda García-Porrero is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her roles as Lucía in the TV series Los Serrano, as Julia in The Sea Inside, for which she won a Goya Award and as Laura in The Orphanage for which she received another Goya Award nomination...
) returns to the dilapidated orphanage where she grew up, accompanied by her husband, Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and their seven-year-old adopted son, Simón (Roger Príncep). Her plan is to reopen the orphanage as a facility for disabled children. Once there, Simón claims to see a boy named Tomás, whom he befriends and draws as a child wearing a sack mask. A social worker, Benigna Escobeda (Montserrat Carulla
Montserrat Carulla
Montserrat Carulla i Ventura is a Spanish actress.Coming from the amateur theatre, she completed her training with courses at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona at the end of the 1940s. However, it was not until 1960 that she began to work in the professional theatre with Soparem a casa , by...
), visits the orphanage, telling Laura that she has Simón's adoption file, which includes the fact that Simón is HIV
HIV
Human immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
-positive. Incensed at Benigna's intrusion, Laura sends her away. That night, Laura finds Benigna snooping around her coal shed, but Benigna escapes before Laura can confront her. Later, Simón teaches Laura a type of scavenger hunt game that Tomás taught him. The game involves hiding a person's possessions, with the player who recovers his final possession winning a wish. While playing the game, the clues lead to Simón's adoption file with an angry Simón saying his new friends told him that Laura is not his real mother and that he knows he is going to die.
During a children's party at the orphanage, Laura and Simón argue, and Simón hides from her. While searching for him, Laura is confronted by a boy in a sack mask with the name "Tomás" embroidered onto his shirt. The boy traps her in a bathroom, and when she escapes she finds that Simón is missing, and searches for him throughout the house and outside. The hunt leads her to a cave where she trips and injures herself. At a medical center, the police psychologist, Pilar, suggests to Laura and Carlos that Benigna may have abducted Simón. That night at home, a bedridden Laura hears unexplained banging in the walls.
Six months later, while searching in a snowy city in Northern Spain, Laura and Carlos spot Benigna pushing a baby carriage downtown. As Laura calls out to her, Benigna is suddenly hit and killed by a speeding bus. Laura rushes to Benigna's carriage, but finds only a doll wearing Tomás' sack mask. The police search Benigna's home and find evidence revealing that Benigna worked at the orphanage long ago and that she had a son named Tomás who was at the orphanage. He wore a sack-like mask over his head due to his deformity and was housed away from the other children in a separate room. Tomás was accidentally killed by the children of the orphanage who stole his mask near a beach cave, which is accessible at low tide. Embarrassed, Tomás hid in the cave, resulting in his death by drowning. In desperation, Laura goes to a medium
Mediumship
Mediumship is described as a form of communication with spirits. It is a practice in religious beliefs such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo and Umbanda.- Concept :...
named Aurora (Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
), seeking clues to her son's disappearance. With clues from the medium, Laura searches the orphanage grounds and discovers the remains of the orphans she grew up with who were killed by Benigna and stored in sacks of bone and ashes that were hidden inside the coal storage outside the house.
Unable to cope with the situation, Carlos leaves the orphanage as Laura promises him she will be done in two days. Laura recreates the original orphanage layout and attempts to contact the ghost children. She soon begins to see them around her when she initiates a game of "Uno, Dos, Tres, Toca la Pared" [One, Two, Three, Knock on the Wall; similar to Red Light, Green Light in the United States], which she used to play while growing up at the orphanage. The ghosts lead her to a hidden door within a cupboard under the stairs (La Casita de Tomas; Tomás' "little house" which Simón referred to just before his disappearance). This door leads to a hidden basement room. In the room, she sees Simón alive and hugs him in a blanket. As the ghost children vanish, Laura finds that the blanket is empty and the body of the deceased Simón, wearing Tomás' mask, lies behind her. She realizes that she had inadvertently caused Simón's death (she had accidentally blocked the hidden door to the basement where he was playing, trapping him inside), and that the unexplained noises she had heard were Simón trying to get out. At one point Laura had heard a loud crash which had been Simon falling through the stair railing, and onto the ground below, breaking his neck. Laura carries Simón's body upstairs and swallows many handfuls of Trankimazin
Alprazolam
Alprazolam is a short-acting anxiolytic of the benzodiazepine class of psychoactive drugs. Alprazolam, like other benzodiazepines, binds to specific sites on the GABAA gamma-amino-butyric acid receptor...
capsules, begging to be with Simón again. Laura's wish is granted as the ghosts of the dead children appear and Simón returns to life in Laura's arms. Simón then tells Laura that his wish was for her to stay and take care of all the orphans. Later, Carlos walks alone over to the memorial for Laura, Simón, and the orphans which stand outside the orphanage. Carlos returns to the orphans' old bedroom and finds a St. Anthony medallion, that he had given to Laura. He hears the door opening; as he looks up he slowly smiles.
Cast
- Belén RuedaBelén RuedaMaría Belén Rueda García-Porrero is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her roles as Lucía in the TV series Los Serrano, as Julia in The Sea Inside, for which she won a Goya Award and as Laura in The Orphanage for which she received another Goya Award nomination...
as Laura, the wife of Carlos and mother of the adopted Simón. Laura returns to the orphanage that she spent some of her youth at to turn it into a home for disabled children. - Fernando Cayo as Carlos, the husband of Laura and father of adopted Simón.
- Roger Príncep as Simón, the young adoptive son of Laura and Carlos. Simón meets new imaginary friends in the orphanage and eventually threatens to run away with them.
- Geraldine ChaplinGeraldine ChaplinGeraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
as Aurora, the medium brought in to help find Simón when the police can't find him. - Mabel RiveraMabel RiveraMaría Isabel Rivera Torres is a Galician actress.She was born in the City and Naval Station of El Ferrol, in Galicia, North-western Spain...
as Pilar, the head of the police psychologist who eventually leads out the truth of who Benigna really is. - Edgar VivarEdgar VivarEdgar Vivar is a Mexican actor. He is best remembered as "Señor Barriga" and his son "Ñoño" from the El Chavo del Ocho television series, and as "El Botija" from the El Chapulín Colorado and Chespirito television series...
as Balabán, the man who puts Laura in contact with Aurora and directs the spirit session in her house. - Montserrat CarullaMontserrat CarullaMontserrat Carulla i Ventura is a Spanish actress.Coming from the amateur theatre, she completed her training with courses at the Institut del Teatre de Barcelona at the end of the 1940s. However, it was not until 1960 that she began to work in the professional theatre with Soparem a casa , by...
as Benigna Escobeda, appearing first in the film as a social worker who sneaks around the orphanage at night. When she is seen young in the film, she is portrayed by Carol Suárez. Production companies working with Bayona tried to urge him to keep this character alive until the end of the film.
Development
The first draft of the script of The Orphanage was written by Sergio G. SánchezSergio G. Sánchez
Sergio G. Sánchez is a Spanish director and screenwriter.Sánchez has written and directed his own screenplays for short films such as Temporada baja and 7337 ....
in 1996. Sánchez was not sure why he chose to write a genre film for the screenplay, as he explains, "I ended up writing a film in the style of those I liked as a kid, movies like Poltergeist, The Omen
The Omen
An original score for the film, including the movie's theme song Ave Satani, was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, for which he received the only Oscar of his long career. The score features a strong choral segment, with a foreboding Latin chant...
, and Rosemary's Baby
Rosemary's Baby (film)
Rosemary's Baby is a 1968 American horror film written and directed by Roman Polanski, based on the bestselling 1967 novel Rosemary's Baby by Ira Levin...
which I ruined on the first VCR we owned at home." Sánchez revealed the literary influences underlying his writing of the script, such as The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw
The Turn of the Screw is a novella written by Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is ostensibly a ghost story.Due to its ambiguous content, it became a favourite text of academics who subscribe to New Criticism. The novella has had differing interpretations, often mutually exclusive...
and Peter Pan
Peter and Wendy
Peter and Wendy, published in 1911, is the novelisation by J. M. Barrie of his most famous play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up...
. Sánchez originally wanted to direct the script but he was repeatedly turned down by various Spanish production companies. While Sánchez was working on the short film 7337 in 2004, he met with director Juan Antonio Bayona
Juan Antonio Bayona
Juan Antonio Bayona is a Spanish film director. In addition to directing television commercials and music videos, Bayona is best known for directing his acclaimed horror film The Orphanage. Bayona is currently signed to create two films: Hater and The Impossible.-Career:Bayona grew up with a...
and offered him the script to direct. Bayona accepted the opportunity because he felt that a fantasy
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
themed script like that of The Orphanage would allow him freedom as a director, saying the fantasy genre was a great tool for learning as it "allows manipulation of space and time as we wish or the use of certain camera moves with an immediate efficiency".
Bayona cut parts of the script, including the outcome of the other orphanage children, because he wanted to focus on the character of Laura and what happens to her. To create the film as he wanted, Bayona had to double both the film's budget and the amount of filming time. To accomplish this, Bayona received help from fellow film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...
, whom he had met at Festival de Cine de Sitges
Festival de Cine de Sitges
The Sitges Film Festival is a Spanish film festival that is one of the most recognizable ones held in Europe, considered the world's foremost international festival specializing in fantasy and horror movies...
when del Toro was presenting his film Cronos
Cronos (film)
Cronos is a 1993 Mexican horror film written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, starring veteran Argentine actor Federico Luppi and American actor Ron Perlman, the first of several films on which del Toro, Luppi and Perlman have collaborated...
(1993). Del Toro offered to co-produce the film as soon as he learned about it. For the rest of his crew, Bayona worked with his regular team that he worked with on commercials and music videos.
Casting
On discussions with casting between del Toro and Bayona, Bayona wanted to have Belén RuedaBelén Rueda
María Belén Rueda García-Porrero is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her roles as Lucía in the TV series Los Serrano, as Julia in The Sea Inside, for which she won a Goya Award and as Laura in The Orphanage for which she received another Goya Award nomination...
in the lead. Del Toro admired this choice as he appreciated her as an actress and that Bayona was casting her against the genre. Bayona admired her after seeing her performance as Julia in Alejandro Amenabar
Alejandro Amenábar
Alejandro Fernando Amenábar Cantos is a Spanish- Chilean film director. Amenábar was born in Santiago, Chile to a Spanish mother and Chilean father, but the family moved to Spain just one year after his birth...
's The Sea Inside. Bayona had Rueda watch The Innocents and Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Close Encounters of the Third Kind is a 1977 science fiction film written and directed by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Richard Dreyfuss, François Truffaut, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, Bob Balaban, and Cary Guffey...
to prepare for the role. Another role Bayona desired for the film was to have Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Chaplin
Geraldine Leigh Chaplin is an English-American actress and the daughter of Charlie Chaplin.Chaplin first came to prominence for her Golden Globe-nominated role of Tonya in David Lean's Doctor Zhivago . She received her second Golden Globe nomination for Robert Altman's Nashville...
as the role of Aurora the medium. Bayona stated that he wanted the film to have "the mood of 70s Spanish cinema
Cinema of Spain
The art of motion-picture making within the nation of Spain or by Spanish filmmakers abroad is collectively known as Spanish Cinema.In recent years, Spanish cinema has achieved high marks of recognition as a result of its creative and technical excellence...
and Geraldine starred in one of the best movies of that decade, Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura
Carlos Saura Atarés is a Spanish film director and photographer.-Early life:Born into a family of artists , he developed his artistic sense in childhood as a photography enthusiast.He obtained his directing diploma in Madrid in 1957 at the Institute of Cinema Research and Studies...
's The Secret of Anna
Cria Cuervos
Cría cuervos is a 1976 Spanish film directed by Carlos Saura. The film is an allegorical drama about an eight year old girl dealing with loss. Highly acclaimed, it received the Special Jury Prize Award at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.-Plot:...
, as the ghost of the mother. It made sense to have her play the medium." Bayona was nervous about filming with Chaplin. To break the ice, on the first day of shooting with her Bayona hid under a bed and grabbed her leg when she knelt down in the dark. Chaplin's scream in the film is her genuine surprise of her being grabbed. The role of Simón by Roger Príncep was one of the first test-screenings for the role. Bayona went through over four-hundred children over two months before making his choice. Edgar Vivar
Edgar Vivar
Edgar Vivar is a Mexican actor. He is best remembered as "Señor Barriga" and his son "Ñoño" from the El Chavo del Ocho television series, and as "El Botija" from the El Chapulín Colorado and Chespirito television series...
was cast for role of Balabán. Bayona knew Vivar through his work on the Mexican television series El Chavo
El Chavo (TV series)
El Chavo del Ocho, commonly known as El Chavo, is a Mexican television sitcom that gained popularity in Spanish-speaking America as well as in Brazil, Spain, United States and other countries...
and sent him an invitation for the role through e-mail.
Filming
Production on The Orphanage began on May 15, 2006 in LlanesLlanes
Llanes a municipality of the province of Asturias, in northern Spain. Stretching for about 30 km along the coast at the extreme east of the province, Llanes is bounded to the south by the high ridge of the limestone Sierra del Cuera, which rises to over 1,100 m...
, Asturias
Asturias
The Principality of Asturias is an autonomous community of the Kingdom of Spain, coextensive with the former Kingdom of Asturias in the Middle Ages...
. This location was chosen due to the area's diverse natural settings that include beaches, caves, cliffs, forests, a small village, and the Partarríu Manor where the orphanage scenes take place. The orphanage was an old colonial house
Colonial house
American colonial architecture includes several building design styles associated with the colonial period of the United States, including First Period English , French Colonial, Spanish Colonial, Dutch Colonial, German Colonial and Georgian Colonial...
from the end of the nineteenth century. Bayona wanted to use certain cinematographic
Cinematography
Cinematography is the making of lighting and camera choices when recording photographic images for cinema. It is closely related to the art of still photography...
techniques that were impossible to achieve in the house, so several parts of the house were reconstructed in sound stages. After four weeks in Llanes, the team moved to Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
to finish up the last ten weeks of filming in sound stages, making over 80% of the film there. Bayona showed the films La residencia and The Innocents to his director of photography
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
on the film, to make special notice of the Scope lensing used in both films.
Release
Cannes Film Festival
The Cannes International Film Festival , is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films of all genres including documentaries from around the world. Founded in 1946, it is among the world's most prestigious and publicized film festivals...
on May 20, 2007. The film was positively received with a ten-minute ovation from the audience. The film's Spanish debut took place at the Sitges Film Festival on October 4, 2007 where it opened the festival. The Orphanage had a wide release in Spain on October 11, 2007 and was immensely successful in Spain after an $8.3 million four-day launch from 350 screens. The film was the second highest-grossing debut ever for a Spanish film and was the biggest opening of the year, making it even larger than the worldwide success of the Spanish-Mexican film Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth is a 2006 Spanish Spanish-language dark fantasy film, written and directed by Mexican film-maker Guillermo del Toro. It was produced and distributed by the Mexican film company Esperanto Films...
. It opened in limited release
Limited release
Limited release is a term in the American motion picture industry for a motion picture that is playing in a select few theaters across the country ....
in the United States on December 28, 2007 and had a wide release on January 11, 2008. It opened in Mexico on January 25, 2008 and earned over $11,000,000 at the box office.
In Spain, the film was nominated for 14 Goya Awards
Goya Awards
The Goya Awards, known in Spanish as los Premios Goya, are Spain's main national film awards, considered by many in Spain, and internationally, to be the Spanish equivalent of the American Academy Awards....
, including Best Picture and ended up winning awards for Best Art Direction, Best Director of Production, Best Makeup and Hair, Best New Director, Best Screenplay - Original, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Special Effects. The Orphanage was chosen by the Spanish Academy of Films as Spain's nominee for the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, but ultimately did not end up as one of the five final nominees in that category.
The Orphanage was picked up by Picturehouse at the Berlin Film Festival for American distribution.
Home media
The Orphanage was released on DVDDVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and Blu-ray
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
on April 22, 2008 for a Region 1 release by New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
. Both discs featured the same bonus features. A Region 2 version was released on DVD by Optimum Releasing
Optimum Releasing
StudioCanal UK is a film distributor company working in the UK and Ireland. The company releases many films, including foreign language films, anime releases such as Studio Ghibli's films and independent British, Irish and American films in the UK and sometimes Ireland.Optimum was acquired by...
on July 21, 2008.
Remake
In 2007, New Line CinemaNew Line Cinema
New Line Cinema, often simply referred to as New Line, is an American film studio. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye and Michael Lynne as a film distributor, later becoming an independent film studio. It became a subsidiary of Time Warner in 1996 and was merged with larger sister studio Warner...
bought the rights to produce an English-language remake with Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro
Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones...
as producer. On remakes, director Bayona noted that "The Americans have all the money in the world but can't do anything, while we can do whatever we want but don't have the money" and "The American industry doesn't take chances, that's why they make remakes of movies that were already big hits". On 4 August 2009, Larry Fessenden
Larry Fessenden
-Life and career:He is president of Glass Eye Pix, an independent film production company based in New York City. Fessenden produced the Dark Sky film The Inkeepers which is directed by Ti West and the thriller Hypothermia, besides his work as producer he stars in the psychological thriller I Can...
was announced as the director of the American remake. Fessenden was later announced that he will not be involved with directing the remake, stating "Working on the script with Guillermo was a very exciting experience, but then I got into a casting miasma and that's where the thing is; I think they're gonna do it another way, actually. So I think I'm out of it. Hopefully they'll still use my script, but I'm not sure I'm directing it anymore". In January 2010, Mark Pellington
Mark Pellington
-Life and career:Pellington was born in Baltimore, Maryland. He directed The Mothman Prophecies, a 2002 film starring Richard Gere dealing with mysterious deaths foretold by a strange red-eyed flying creature, Mothman, as well as Arlington Road in 1999 starring Tim Robbins and Jeff Bridges....
replaced Larry Fessenden
Larry Fessenden
-Life and career:He is president of Glass Eye Pix, an independent film production company based in New York City. Fessenden produced the Dark Sky film The Inkeepers which is directed by Ti West and the thriller Hypothermia, besides his work as producer he stars in the psychological thriller I Can...
as director of the project.
Reception
The Orphanage was received very well by American critics on its original release. The film ranking website Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reported that 86% of critics had given the film positive reviews, based upon a sample of 146. At Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, which assigns a normalized
Standard score
In statistics, a standard score indicates how many standard deviations an observation or datum is above or below the mean. It is a dimensionless quantity derived by subtracting the population mean from an individual raw score and then dividing the difference by the population standard deviation...
rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average
Weighted mean
The weighted mean is similar to an arithmetic mean , where instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others...
score of 74, based on 33 reviews. Critics praised the film for its lack of cheap scares. Film critic for the Chicago Sun Times Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
approved of the film claiming it to be "deliberately aimed at viewers with developed attention spans. It lingers to create atmosphere, a sense of place, a sympathy with the characters, instead of rushing into cheap thrills". Bill Goodykoontz of the Arizona Republic echoed this statement noting, "Bayona never lets The Orphanage descend into cheap horror. The scares here are expertly done and, placed in the context of Laura's state of mind, well-earned, perhaps even explainable (or not)." Peter Howell of the Toronto Star
Toronto Star
The Toronto Star is Canada's highest-circulation newspaper, based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its print edition is distributed almost entirely within the province of Ontario...
wrote, "The year's best horror picture is also one of the simplest. The Orphanage makes little if any use of digital tricks to present its numerous terrors." The casting of Chaplin and Rueda was praised while the role of Carlos was called dull. Goodykoontz noted the role of Carlos, saying "Cayo is rather pedestrian as Carlos, but he isn't given that much to do". Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips (critic)
Michael Phillips is a film critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Previously he was the drama critic of the Tribune; the Los Angeles Times; the St. Paul Pioneer Press; the San Diego Union-Tribune; and the Dallas Times Herald....
of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
shared this opinion saying, "Rueda has a great pair of peepers for this assignment. When she looks one way and then the other, while skulking through the hallways of her childhood home, every nerve-wracking whatwasthat? registers, and how. Cayo is pretty dull by comparison, but Chaplin certainly is not." Liam Lacey of The Globe & Mail praised Rueda stating, "The strongest appeal of the film is the brooding, intense performance by Spanish actress, Belen Rueda." The Orphanage listed as one of the top 10 best films of 2007 by several critics, including Lawrence Toppman of the Charlotte Observer, Marc Doyle of Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
and Tasha Robinson of The Onion
The Onion
The Onion is an American news satire organization. It is an entertainment newspaper and a website featuring satirical articles reporting on international, national, and local news, in addition to a non-satirical entertainment section known as The A.V. Club...
. Anthony Lane of The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
included the film on his top ten list of 2008.
There were few negative reviews, and those that were negative were not in agreement. A negative review came from Lacey of The Globe & Mail, who felt that at "[the film's] core, it seems intended as a sympathetic drama of a bereaved mother, who may have slipped into madness. What's even more disquieting is the persistent undercurrent of exploitation - the mixture of grief and jarring shock effects and the pitiless use of a disfigured child as a source of horror." A.O. Scott of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
claimed the film to be a "diverting, overwrought ghost story" and that it "relies on basic and durable horror movie techniques". Jack Matthews of New York Daily News found the ending of the film to be one of the worst of the season, but praised the acting of Belén Rueda
Belén Rueda
María Belén Rueda García-Porrero is a Spanish actress. She is best known for her roles as Lucía in the TV series Los Serrano, as Julia in The Sea Inside, for which she won a Goya Award and as Laura in The Orphanage for which she received another Goya Award nomination...
.
Soundtrack
In 2007, the film scoreFilm score
A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...
was composed by Fernando Velázquez and released on compact disc by Rhino Records in Spain. The score for the film was nominated for film awards including the Goya Award for Best Score. The soundtrack has not been released locally in North America or the United Kingdom and is only available by import.