l_rawjalaurence Made at the height of the Franco regime, THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE has been read an an allegory of the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath, concentrating particularly on the destruction wrought amongst those who served in it and their families.Even for those viewers unacquainted with Spanish history, the film is pregnant with meaning. For those interested in the use of intertexts, director Victor Erice's direct quotation from James Whale's seminal FRANKENSTEIN (1931) introduces us to the idea of spirits and human (re) creation that dominates the narrative. Little Ana (Ana Torrent) is duped by her sister Isabel (Isabel Tellería) into believing that there lurks a spirit close by their isolated farmhouse who can be conjured up simply by wishing for its presence. Ana encounters a military deserter and believes that he is the spirit. Her discovery transports her into a dream-world where she re-enacts the famous sequence from Whale's film where the monster meets the young girl. In SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE the monster (José Villasante) does not kill Ana, but leaves her unable (or perhaps) unwilling to separate fantasy from "reality." Through such strategies director Erice forces to question our ontologies; do we really know what being "human" is, and can we separate this state of being from our imagination?This theme acquires a religious dimension through repeated shots of Jesus Christ surrounded by the Apostles and a human skull. In Christianity we are taught to place our trust in the Holy Spirit, but how do we know that this is a "good" spirit, as opposed to the "evil" spirit conjured up in Ana's mind. Erice leaves us with no answer.From thence it is but a short thematic step to reflect on Ana's father Don Fernando (Fernando Fernán Gómez) and his tendency to write his scientific discoveries about his beehives in a journal, in a manner similar to Colin Clive's Dr. Frankenstein in Whale's film. Does Don Fernando like to consider himself a Creator, performing experiments with bees rather than human beings? Or are they linked in some way? Erice emphasizes the parallels through shots of the patterned windows of Don Fernando's house, which are shaped much the same as the honeycombs in his beehives.The film's narrative unfolds slowly, with plenty of static shots in which characters move in and out of the frame. Light is an important element of the mise-en-scene, with our attention focused deliberately on the two little girls' faces, as well as those of their parents. This visual strategy once again forces us to reflect on what separates human beings from other species, spirits as well as bees.THE SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE is a highly complex work, whose sophisticated visual style and structure warrants repeated viewings. A true classic of European cinema.

SnoopyStyle It's somewhere on the Castilian plateau around 1940. A traveling movie show brings the classic Frankenstein to town attracting all the eager youngsters. Ana and her older sister Isabel are fascinated by the meeting of the little girl and the monster. Ana can't understand why the girl was killed but Isabel assures her that it's all fake. In fact, she's seen the monster alive in real life as a spirit in the night and living in an abandoned farmhouse nearby. They go there and imagine the invisible giant. Then Ana finds a real wounded Republican soldier starts hiding in the farmhouse from the Franco forces. The girls' father tends to the beehives and writes while their mother daydreams about her lover who had gone to war.This is a pretty slow movie. It has some interesting shots, and a lot of long uncut scenes. The girls are amazing. The scene of them watching the movie is glorious. There's only one scene where the family is all together. It's not that loving family. Quite frankly, the parents can be just figures off screen for all I care. Ana Torrent has such a doll face. The camera can exist just by pointing at her. The problem is that this movie has no tension most of the time. It exists in its world but it takes forever to get to anywhere. If the movie wants to take the Frankenstein comparison to the fullest, it should have included a Dr Frankenstein in the movie. They could have added news footage of the war and Franco. Or maybe have a big commander as the doctor.

Jackson Booth-Millard I remember reading this in the book of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, the title certainly didn't suggest anything to me about the plot, but it was rated highly by critics as well and I was definitely going to watch and hope for the best. Basically, set in 1940, after the end of the Spanish Civil War, with the Francoist victory over the Republican forces, and in an small isolated Spanish village on the Castilian plateau lives beekeeper and amateur mycologist Fernando (Fernando Fernán Gómez), his younger wife Teresa (Teresa Gimpera), and their two adolescent daughters Isabel (Isabel Tellería) and Ana (Ana Torrent). During the war Teresa met and fell for a soldier, she has been communicating with him through letters and longs to be with him again, due to this the family life is cold and distant, especially between the husband and wife, but at least their children remain close, they are not just sisters but the best of friends. The sisters go to the local cinema together and watch the latest movie to arrive in town as part of a travelling movie, classic horror movie Frankenstein (1931), and it leaves a lasting impression on six year old Ana, she was not frightened, but she was fascinated by the scene where the Monster making friends with a little girl before she is thrown into the water and drowns. Isabel assures her that everything in the film is fake, but she can think of the Monster as being like a spirit that she can call for, and she even tells her gullible sister that it lives in an abandoned farmhouse and will reveal itself at night when she makes friends with it, Ana returns alone there many times to look for him, but only finds a large footprint each time. Isabel one day lets out a loud scream in the house, Ana comes to see what is wrong and finds her lying perfectly still on the floor, she is in fact pretending to be dead, and that night Ana closes her eyes calling to the Monsters she longs to meet, and at the same during this night a fugitive republican soldier (Juan Margallo) jumps from a moving train and limps to hide in the farmhouse. The next day Ana goes to the farmhouse as usual and finds the soldier, she does not run in terror however, she feeds him and brings some of her father's clothing and pocket watch, he is wordless and she does not speak either, this silent friendship seems very similar to that Frankenstein, but it is brought to an end when during the night police catch up to him and shoot him. The police find the clothing and pocket watch, connect it with Fernando, and the father realises that his younger daughter helped the strange man, Ana goes back to the farmhouse to find the man she assumes is the Monster, she only finds fresh blood on the floor, her father confronts her before she runs away, and wandering into the woods comes across poisonous mushrooms she was told would kill anyone who eats it. It is unclear is she did eat a mushroom, but she has a vision of Frankenstein's Monster (José Villasante) gazing at her sadly behind her as she kneels beside the water, meanwhile Teresa is seen burning a letter meant for her past lover, she is seen later caring for Fernando as well, so the affair is likely to be over, a search party finds Ana the next morning, but she refuses to speak and eat, the doctor assures the parents is shock, at night she closes her eyes and appears to still call for a spirit. Also starring Laly Soldevila as Doña Lucía, Miguel Picazo as Doctor and Ketty De La Cámara as Milagros. Young Torrent gives an enchanting performance as the little girl mistaking a fictional character for a spirit, and later being embodied by the soldier she shortly befriends, this film works really well because it feels authentic to the time it is set, there are interesting things to see, including the beekeeping (hence the title), and it is simple but really charming, a wonderfully watchable period drama. Very good!

lasttimeisaw The melodious flute score is an overture to this phenomenally shot film (much owes to the cinematographer Luis Cuadrado, who went blind during the shooting and would committed suicide in 1980) with profound imagery of Spain under the circumstances of Francisco Franco's ebbing ruling regime. Running against a succinct 95 minutes, the film introduces us a rural village in 1940s, after watching the horror-classic FRANKENSTEIN (1931), a seven-year-old girl Ana inexplicably gets possessed with the spirit of the monster in the film, slowly, her elder sister Isabel, and their parents, all realize their live will eternally changed by the unstoppable pace which their country is also experiencing. The diegetic curve doesn't limn an overbearing quantity of hubbub to foreground the family- related crisis, instead, it quietly and singularly takes its time to observe every tiny fluctuation of its executors' mind of state, subtle and poetic, under the background of oil-painting-alike texture and sometimes tender amber aura, the magical influence of the film's idyllic melancholia and psychological allusions can take your breath away if you can immerse yourself into the mise en scène.Ana Torrent (3 years before her another gripping child performance RAISE RAVENS 1976, 9/10) is the attention-grabber among the cast, such a consuming delivery of a girl's convoluted mind orbit around her daily encounters under the minimal and drab milieu, also emotionally tangible is the sibling relationship between her and Isabel, more obliquely but equally palpable hinted is the insular stalemate of the communication with and between their parents, the whole state of the family sets off a torpor which is both depressing and unbearable. Ana is looking for her own monster to whom she can relate her feelings, what would be more thrilling and ironical than befriending some creature with a kind heart under the protection of a spine-chilling outfit, no matter it is a ghost or a spirit, the wounded fugitive is her salvation, but is suffocated by the cruel reality, and also creates a crevice between her and her father, the delusional imagination triggered by the poisonous mushroom is the last resort and we never know if there is a cure for her. Victor Erice's own career path is quite tortuous, over 40 years or so, the fact that only 3 feature films are made is a crystal clear testimony of an auteur's abiding friction with the investors, comfortingly at least this film doesn't fail him and will always be an incentive for aficionados to be indebted for his prowess and acknowledge his uncredited endeavor.