Painless
(2013)
Dir. Juan Carlos
Medina
Painless
is
a film highly informed by the work of Guillermo Del Toro; it has the
same meticulous period detail touched with dark bouts of magical
realism; the same interest in the brutality of Fascist regimes,
particularly that of Franco's Spain; and it continues the rich
Spanish cinematic tradition of a fascination with children and the
ghosts of the past. Working backward and forward through time, the
film begins in 1931 and returns periodically to the present day. Its
central idea revolves around the discovery of a group of young
children who appear to be completely impervious to physical pain.
Because the children have become dangerous to those around them,
replete with horrific burns and broken bones, they are taken from
their parents and straitjacketed, put indefinitely into solitary
confinement in a godforsaken asylum. A medical team is there to learn
more about these children, particularly one young boy who shows a
capacity for both serene tenderness and shocking violence. Deeply
involving, the film intertwines the past and present with a
well-paced dual structure, connecting the desperate search of a
modern Spanish doctor, David, to the events of recent history. He is
told of the war years: 'Forgetting is what matters today', and he is
advised repeatedly against digging into the past.
Of
course, the children's 'unknown affliction' has both wonderful and
terrifying capacities; under the darkening fog of the late 1930's,
the concept of an ubermensch
soldier
is close to the surface of our thoughts.
There is no overt suggestion that the children's powers are to be
exploited, but had the experiments gone uninterrupted by the breakout
of the Spanish Civil War, one can only guess at the dark purposes
they may have been used for. Over the course of Franco's regime and
the occupation of the Nazis, the asylum's increasingly wretched
conditions and litany of cruelty sees an innocent child make a
terrifying transformation. The character Berkano's inability to feel
– or understand – pain may seem supernatural, but the true horror
lies in a very human complicity with violence and oppression. The
past haunts and informs the present day - the perverted genesis of
David's family history comes to bear on his life in hideous ways. The
corrupted ideologies of Fascism and Nazism breed monstrosity in many
forms, and forgetting
does not excuse or erase it.
As
it transpires, the brooding atmospherics of the opening descend into
a hellish finale, something of an unfortunate and overwrought
conclusion that feels at odds with the subtlety and mood of most of
the film. Be that as it may, it is a truly engaging story; an
impressive homage to the tradition of European horror. Painless
is alive with political allegory that may not be novel, but is still
prescient and intensely watchable.
