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23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
A supremely clever film, 25 Oct 2002
To fully understand 'The Spirit of the Beehive' (El Espiritu de la Colmena), one has to understand the context in which it was made. Although the film is set in 1940 it was produced in 1973, two years before the death of Franco, the end of his dictatorship, and the political and cultural repression which characterised it. Erice manages to brilliantly depict the traumas of a family of republican sympathisers, struggling to come to terms with life under the fascist regime. What is special, is that he creates a powerful critique of the regime, and a call to arms to all those who believe in democratic values to prepare for the dictators then-imminent death, without saying anything that could actually be censored. As a result, much of the imagery used in the film can be hard to grasp, and indeed is open to multiple interpretations - what is the significance of the beehives, of Frankenstein's monster (many say Franco but I disagree), the railway etc.? -I will leave it for you to theorise and debate on these and other aspects. The performances are masterful, particularly young Ana Torrent and the great Fernando Fernan-Gomez, whose much later film 'The Butterfly's Tongue' has echoes of 'The Spirit of the Beehive' in it. What is more, the mood and atmosphere of repression are extraordinarily well recreated. This work is not the easiest film I have ever watched, but it is without doubt one of the most rewarding
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25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
Classic of Spanish Cinema, 2 Sep 2005
"Spirit of the Beehive" begins with 'once upon a time', an epithet which, while it translates us into a world of children, simultaneously opens our eyes to the contrasting vision of fairytale and the reality of the adult world.Set in a Castilian village in 1940, the Second World War has already engulfed Europe. Spain has just emerged from its Civil War, Franco is hunting down Republican sympathisers, and there is still a prospect that he will enter the war on the side of Hitler. This seems a bleak, unwelcoming place, but down the road comes a lorry ... a lorry bringing an evening of cinema to the villagers. Tonight it will be 'Frankenstein', projected onto a whitewashed wall while the audience bring their own chairs and cushions and settle in hushed expectation. Director Victor Erice captures the wonder of cinema and its electrification of the imagination. His tale follows the lives of two sisters - Ana and Isabel - who become engrossed in the film. Young Ana, in particular, becomes obsessed with the notion that she can communicate with the monster and goes in search of him. She will, instead, find an escaped Republican prisoner hiding in a barn - she brings him food and clothing (echoes, here, of 'Whistle Down the Wind', or even 'Great Expectations'). It's a tale of growth, discovery and wonderment as Ana recognises her identity and the power of her own mind to shape her own world. Erice's characters make sense of the world around them, and are often highly introspective in character. Ana talks with her sister, but rarely communicates with anyone else. Her father studies bees, shutting himself off from the political world - he seems unable to communicate with people. And her mother writes letters to a former lover, banished to France after the Civil War. The characters are all, in their own way, self-contained, seeking their own definitions of their world and of themselves, but expressive of the loss of identity and role which Franco's triumph created, and the isolation Spain would experience after the defeat of Hitler - shunned by much of Europe. Erice's film is not overtly political - Franco was still in power when it was made - but it nevertheless offers a commentary on the experience of dictatorship. It's a visually stunning piece of filmmaking. Though the setting is bleak and lacking in any sort of glamour, Erice captures the dreamlike, fantasy quality of childhood. Ana Torrent delivers a mesmerising performance as the young Ana, beautifully portraying the essence of childhood innocence and imagination. Regarded as a masterpiece of the Spanish cinema, "The Spirit of the Beehive" is a visual poem which seduces and holds your attention. It is a delight to watch.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Magic and loss, 19 Nov 2003
Many filmmakers use children, but few understand them; even fewer can remember what it was like to be a child themselves; virtually none can communicate that feeling. Erice's feature hums with the magic and awe of childhood. Every adult should see it at least once; whether you can bear to experience more than once the sense of loss that comes when it ends is another matter.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
A haunting, heartbreaking film you will never, ever forget, 15 Jul 2004
By A Customer
In Castile on the eve of the Second World War a traveling show brings a movie to town. Ana Torrent plays a little girl (also named Ana) who sees Boris Karloff's "Frankenstein" and is convinced the monster is real. She ends up befriending a wounded fugitive, believing him to be the monster. Victor Erice's haunting film is obviously a political statement on life in Spain during Franco's reign, but it functions even better as testimony to the power of a child's imagination and the fatal loss of innocence that invariable comes to us all. Not a film for children, who will neither recognize nor appreciate the warning, but for those of us who will always cherish the children we once were, and the world in which we wanted to live. "The Spirit of the Beehive" is a film to treasure forever.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Through Ana's eyes: a masterpiece of childhood, 20 April 2008
Every once in a while I stumble upon a masterpiece. This is a masterpiece of childhood set in Franco's Spain in 1940. There are political allusions and asides that somehow escaped Franco's censors, or maybe they were indulged. It matters not because the bleak landscape surrounding the house with its honeycombed windows and its honey colored light says more than words could.
I would compare this favorably with two other masterpieces of childhood, the French films, Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games) (1952), and Ponette (1996) What is explored in all three of these films is the reality of childhood that we have forgotten, the intensity of first knowledge, of things experienced for the first time, the wonder and the horror that such experiences may contain. But more than that there is the unconditioned sense of life that the child experiences. When Ana sees the fugitive (from Franco, one imagines) who has injured his leg jumping off the train, she immediately knows what is essential in this situation. The man is hurt. He is hungry. He needs help. She gives him an apple from her lunch pail, which he eagerly devours. Although she has been scared by a Frankenstein movie and her sister's pretence of death and gloved hands around her face, she is not afraid.
This is the most laconic of films. Almost everything is done with the camera and the events. The children laugh and play and watch the world with wonder. They say a few words, direct and to the point. Six year old Ana (Ana Torrent) has dark eyes as big as saucers which she trains on the world as if to bore into the very nature of existence. Her older sister Isabel's eyes sometimes form slits of mischief or delight as she tests reality or teases her sister.
The pace of the film is deliberately slow. The essay by famed Spanish film expert Paul Julian Smith contained in the booklet accompanying the Criterion Collection two-disc set includes Smith's remark that when the film was first shown in San Sebastian in 1973 where it won the main prize, "Some of the audience, restless at the film's slow pace, even booed."
There is a technique in the theater, not so much observed today, that also works well in movies. Slow it down, begin with everyday, mundane events, and play them long like honey slowly oozing, so much the better to contrast with the events to come, and give those events the contrast they deserve as they have in real life. Director Victor Erice does this to fine effect. How drawn out seem the lessons at school, and how tedious. But such is the life of a child when every day is a little eternity, where so much happens that when the lights go out, the child falls into a deep, dreamless sleep for many hours at a stretch. We have forgotten this world of the child, but Erice reminds us.
I was not restless because, although the pace is indeed slow, the cinematography by Luis Cuadrado and the terse silent events of innocence set against the background of the late Spanish Civil War portended events to come. Just what those events might be it was impossible to guess; however it was clear there would be no compromise with audience expectations or any catering to any sort of correctness, political or otherwise. And this is part of what makes a great film.
Character, story, suspense, an important theme, beautiful visuals, truth--artistic truth of course, psychological human truth--and attention to detail: these are also what make a great film. And they are all here in El espíritu de la colmena.
Erice plays with our emotions of course. We are nearly terrified that something is going to happen to these beautiful little girls, and indeed once or twice it appears that our worst fears are realized. Are they or are they not?
It is said that Ana was traumatized by viewing the Frankenstein movie and by her sister's horrid joke, and then by the blood she sees in the old building by the well where the fugitive had rested. But I think it would be better to say that Ana was challenged by new-found knowledge of the ever close proximity of death, and in reaction she ran away into her own world to find an answer. Notice how the scene from James Wales' Frankenstein in which the monster kneels beside the water with the little girl is repeated in Ana's fantasy, and how she looks at the monster with big, wide-open, questioning, waiting eyes. What is life, and what is death? And, know this: I will always live in fear and dread if I do not know what they are and if cannot face them.
When she encounters the Frankenstein monster at the water's edge she has only her beauty to protect her. But that beauty resides in our head--in Frankenstein's head--and so she is safe. This is part of the deep psychology of the film, wondrously achieved, perhaps part by art and part by happenstance.
I believe that is what Ana experienced in her mind. But we do not know. We do not know the mind of the child. And we have forgotten what it is to be a child. Erice's masterpiece helps us to remember.
There is a documentary about the film on the second disc with interviews with Erice and with Angel Fernandez Santos who worked with Erice on the script, and others. We see Ana Torrent all grown up, which is what I most wanted to see. And we learn how the film was made. A masterpiece, it is my belief, whether it is in cinema or literature, in chess or music, or in some other art form always brings together unconscious elements that fuse with conscious intent. It is only later that we recognize what happened.
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8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
Deeply Moving Spiritually ... Subtle, Artistic, 21 April 2006
This film is based on some interesting phenomenon that occurred during a specific historical time in Spain, just prior to World War II. The beginning scene is idyllic and peaceful, where Fernando is tending beehives. The fact that there is no musical accompaniment, just the sounds of nature and life makes the film more unique, a tad eerie and very remarkable, creating emotional expectations and a depth that is subtle but very intense. The best acting is by Ana, a young girl about 6 years of age. She is perfectly cast in her role. Her innocence and charm are real and natural. Everyone who views her will return to aspects of their own childhood on certain levels. The innocent times when, no matter what happened, life was good, the world was new, exciting and filled with first discoveries. In this film ... one comes to expect ... a certain awakening or shocking event ... something surprising with a huge emotional impact ... coming out of the clear blue.
The family lives in a two story stone villa that looks almost like a mansion except for the stones which look hewn from the local soil, despite the large iron gate, there is an earthiness to the building. It has an overly large foyer ... The second level is where the family lives. Ana and her sister, Isabel who is about 10 or 11 years old share a bedroom which has single twin beds in a lovely room furnished with antiques. Fernando has a study, there is no electricity, he uses oil lamps and candles. He has marvelous big wooden bookcases and a huge desk where he writes poetic lyrical verse about his beehives which he lovingly tends. The beehive may be the metaphor for their lives in a subtle sort of way.
The camera slowly rolls over stone buildings and dirt roads in the nearby village where one building is used as a movie theater. There is excitement in the air when an old truck pulls up which delivers this weeks film. Inside, adults set up wooden chairs, outside the children excitedly ask the driver whether the film is good. He reassures them, it is the best. The camera is used effectively to film the faces of many villagers of different ages ... people who work hard, they are simple but dignified, ready to view the film of the week, one of the few sources of entertainment in the town. As the film starts, there is an introduction by an announcer who advocates the miraculous discoveries of science and compares that with the creation of life by God. Yet in this film, a scientist did just that, brought to life a man-like creature he had made. Ana is fascinated by the monster, who is given a flower by a littl girl in the film but we learn later, the monster named Frankenstein killed the girl. Ana puzzles over why he did this as clearly the little girl liked him as she handed him the freshly picked flowers in her hand.
At bed time Ana can not get the film out of her mind and discusses Frankenstein and his behavior with Isabel. Isabel fabricates a story that satisfies Ana by stating Frankenstein is a spirit who can take on a body if human beings pray and sincerely believe in him, somehow twisting their religious beliefs to make this seem plausbible. Only those who truly have faith can do this. From this point forward, Ana wants to conjure up a spirit with a body and Isabel takes her to an abandoned old stone building far out in the fields, telling her a spirit lives there who might appear in bodily form if Ana believes strongly enough in him. Ana is shown to visit this farmhouse often ... alone ... looking down the well and walking around the building ... Until one day, she does find a man inside the building - fulfilling Isabel's story ... What happens afterwards,for good or bad needs to be viewed to be appreciated. The artistry and beauty of the film are beyond word descriptions at this point.
On some levels the family seems disconnected, the children do not often interact with the parents, surprisingly not even with the mother which seems unnatural. There are scenes where the family is eating and amazingly everyone at the table is silent, except for the sounds of eating. The sisters giggle and communicate with smiles and body language as children often do. Isabel pulls a trick on Ana pertaining to Frankenstein. It is heart-stopping and gut-wrenching but just what children often do. Amazing but the parents are nowhere nearby when this occurs.
Sadly, at times the creative subtle artistic approach obscures the intentions of the director; they are totally lost on the viewer ... Fernando, the father takes the girls on an outing to pick mushroom, he points out which are edible and which ones are poisonous. Toward the end, the whole town gets involved in the actions related to something that happens to Ana ... I will leave the reader to ponder what that might be hopefully there is enough information in this review to entice the reader to want to view this film. This is a highly recommended film, somewhat more complicated than it should be however appreciation for its beauty grows on the viewer long after it is viewed.
Erika Borsos (erikab93)
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Not Pan's Labyrinth - but then...., 20 Jun 2008
I won't repeat much of what's been said. This is a beautiful and moving and understated and enigmatic work.
On reflection, it seems to me like a strange mirror that can be held up in contrast to Pan's Labyrinth.
Both are Franco's Spain and war, but here, instead of total, full-on war, barbarity and magical realism, we have quiet, emptiness and the constant feeling that everything is happening somewhere else. One is full-in-your-face, the other at a distance. But at their heart they have the innocence and imagination of a young girl to centre and drive them - in which to escape the present and usher in ultimate freedom of spirit and its victory. Both films now sit side by side in my mind, like sisters with totally different characters, but born of the same impulse and dysfunction of a nation-family held captive by its rotten father.
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6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
A haunting, heartbreaking film you will never, ever forget, 14 Jul 2004
By A Customer
In Castile on the eve of the Second World War a traveling show brings a movie to town. Ana Torrent plays a little girl (also named Ana) who sees Boris Karloff's "Frankenstein" and is convinced the monster is real. She ends up befriending a wounded fugitive, believing him to be the monster. Victor Erice's haunting film is obviously a political statement on life in Spain during Franco's reign, but it functions even better as testimony to the power of a child's imagination and the fatal loss of innocence that invariable comes to us all. Not a film for children, who will neither recognize nor appreciate the warning, but for those of us who will always cherish the children we once were, and the world in which we wanted to live. "The Spirit of the Beehive" is a film to treasure forever.
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5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
a very pleasant spanish film with beautiful scenery, 8 Oct 2003
I have seen this film twice, once on a minute television and once on the big screen and the difference is amazing. In the cinema all the landscapes of erices master piece really bowl you over, and it is almost as if you are sitting in the spanish hills watching the adventures of the two girls ana and isabelle. This film is beautiful throughout wonderfully shot and world class cinematography really are its merits. It is a very contemplatory film about fragility of the young and this is conveyed through the metaphor of Frankenstein(about who the film was originally going to be based, but then he just faded into a charecter) The girls see the film frankenstein and this film charts the effect it has on them. Worth seeing just becuase of the beauty of the language and scenery.
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
A Cinematic Masterpiece, 28 Aug 2005
The Filmmaker, Victor Erice, has only directed three films in his career but this 1973 Spanish tale of life after the Spanish Civil War is renowned as a masterpiece of European cinema.The Spirit of the Beehive is set in the Castilian countryside in the 1940's when Franco had just won the Spanish Civil War but was still hunting down Republican sympathisers. Following a travelling cinema's screening of James Whale's Frankenstein, 7-year-old Ana becomes fascinated with the scene where the monster meets the little girl. Ana's elder sister Isabel tells her that the monster of the film doesn't die and if she closes her eyes she can beckon him by calling "I'm Ana". Isabel also alerts Ana that the monster can be seen at an remote barn where Ana finds a wounded soldier. The film is a charming and quite captivating tale of the effects of The Spanish Civil War on a rural Spanish village. Beautifully played by the two young actresses and the veteran actor, Fernando Fernan Gomez - the bee-keeping father, the film received critical accolades across the world. Derek Malcolm viewed the film as one of his 100 best films of the century and described it as "one of the most beautiful and arresting films ever made in Spain, or anywhere in the past 25 years or so. "
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