“The Spirit of the Beehive,” directed by Víctor Erice, takes place in a small, isolated Spanish town in 1940, shortly after the end of the civil war that inaugurated the long reign of Generalissimo Francisco Franco. The film was made in 1973, near the end of Franco’s dictatorship, at a time when Spanish cinema was just starting to reawaken, and to probe, carefully and hesitantly, the buried traumas of the recent past. Perhaps fittingly, one of Mr. Erice’s themes is repression – not so much the stifling of thought by political authority as the willed avoidance of painful experience. The story that emerges from Mr. Erice’s lovely, lovingly considered images is at once lucid and enigmatic, poised between adult longing and childlike eagerness, sorrowful knowledge and startled innocence.
Starring: Ana Torrent, Isabel Telleria, Fernando Fernan Gomez, Teresa Gimpera
Directed by: Victor Erice
Runtime: 99 minutes
Studio: Criterion Collection
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Victor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive tells the tale of a remote Spanish village in 1940 in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Our focus is on one family – Fernando (Fernando Fernan Gomez) is the father who spends his days tending to beehives and writing at his desk until he sleeps, his younger wife Teresa (Teresa Gimpera) writes lover letters to a soldier that has not returned from the war and their daughters Ana (Ana Torrent) and Isabel (Isabel Telleria) spend their time together. Ana is a quiet girl and often teased by her older sister.
The whole village gathers when a mobile cinema arrives and plays Frankenstein with Boris Karloff in the starring role. Ana becomes fascinated by the film and in the aftermath she retreats from reality into her own world. She asks her sister about the film but is told it is all fake though Frankenstein lives near the village and that Ana can visit him whenever she wishes. An abandoned sheephold with a well nearby is said to be where Frankenstein waits and Ana begins to go there alone to meet him. Instead of Frankenstein, Ana comes across another man, one who may put her life in danger.
The Spirit of the Beehive is a well-acted drama with an absorbing storyline and a confident central performance from Torrent. Influences on the likes of Pan’s Labyrinth are clear and though this doesn’t reach the same heights as Guillermo Del Toro’s masterpiece it is still more than worth your time.
Verdict: 4/5
(Film source: reviewer’s own copy)
Film Review: The Spirit of the Beehive | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave
