RECOMMENDED (El Orfanato, 2007) Juan Antonio Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” debuting on the same date as “presenter” Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” opened last year, is yet one more example of the thriving Spanish film industry, which still finds room for latter-day cosmopolitan melodramas after the style of Almodovar while encouraging other talents with a fondness for the otherworldly. I saw this spooky variation on “Peter Pan” as part of a survey of Spanish films of the past five years at the Thessaloniki International Film Festival, and it was a standout there as well as in a U.S. context for many of the same reasons “Pan’s Labyrinth” was: Bayona’s soup of influences works up a weave of otherworldliness that unsettles for all its tasteful shoplifting among cinematic forebears. 100m. (Ray Pride)
“The Orphanage” opens Friday.
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