Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive

Title: The Spirit of the Beehive
Director: Victor Erice
TRT: 97 min.
Year: 1973


The Spirit of the Beehive is a Spanish film directed by Victor Erice in 1973. The film is set in 1940 right after Spain’s Civil War. Druing this time, there was rivalry between two different parties : The Nationalists and the Republicans. In the film, each girls represents a political party. The movie focuses on two young girls named Ana and Isabel. A mobile cinema brings the 1931 film “Frankenstein” to the town and two girls go an see it. Ana is horrified when she witnesses the Frankenstein monster killing the young girl in the film. Ana then becomes fascinated with the movie and she attempts to search for the monster believe that the monster actually exists.
The first article I found is The Guardian in the UK. It is titled, “Victor Erice: The Spirit of the Beehive: In the Shadow of Franco.” The article points out that when the film was made in 1973, Spanish Filmmakers had to hide their political messages in allegory such as Erice did with this movie. In the Movie, Ana discovers a Republican soldier who is hiding from Franco’s army. In Ana’s mind, The soldier is the Frankenstein monster from the film even tho the soldier is eventually found and killed. The article mentions that the film is about child-hood imaginings. Also, it is about “Franco’s long shadow cast over Spain.” The film plays as if the girls are in a dream world and is cloaked in quit and sadness. An interesting fact I found in this article is that the producer worried that Erice would never complete this film and Erice has only made very few films after. One of them is only half-completed.
The second article is simply titled “The Spirit of the Beehive.” The article points out that after the movie was released, Franco’s regime was “rotting from the inside” and Franco himself was near dying. Under Franco’s rule, political speech was restricted so people took to the arts to get their political messages across, such as Erice. Erice’s “The Spirit of the Beehive” became a calling card and showed that Franco’s regime was indeed vulnerable. The film also correctly portrayed the trouble Spanish Society and the psychological costs of it. In the film, Fernando tends to his bees and the family is pretty withdrawn from society and acts as it they are unconscious.
This film was alright. I like the story-line and how it was centered on Ana searching from the Frankenstein monster after they see the film. She believes he is a spirit in her world. The cinematography was very good with the use of muted colors and the shots were well conceived. However, I thought the film was a little slow and could have been paced a little better but I think the director intended it to be more of a reflection of the time. Overall, I think Erice did a good job with the film.

Sources:

1.) http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/1999/sep/16/derekmalcolmscenturyoffilm

2.) http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/filmnotes/beehive.htm


l