Film: The Sprit of the Beehive (1973) [Victor Erice, Dir.]

Dearest Matinees, have you recovered from dried gore and thespian exploits? Excellent. I now give you installment two in the homage to ma petite soeur Coco with a movie she introduced me to, The Spirit of the Beehive, El espíritu de la colmena---a film that is truly beautiful and argued to be one of the finest from Spain in the 1970s, as Franco was finally falling off this earth. The Spirit of the Beehive can be read as multiple movies in terms of various interpretations, the foremost being a struggle with facism (the entire film can be read as an allegory of internal politics and civil strife in Spain and in that vein, The Spirit of the Beehive is the grandmother of Pan's Labyrinth and Devil's Backbone). The film also looks at the institution of family, the illusion of cinema, etc.---but primarily for this read, it is a story of two sisters...

Ana (Ana Torrent) and her older sister Isabel (Isabel Telleria) live in a small village, on a Castillian plain with their mother Teresa and father Fernando. The adults are preoccupied with illicit letter writing and beekeeping, respectively and the film is really from the perspective of the little girls in many ways, especially Ana.

Ana and Isabel attend the village's showing of Frankenstein, where they bring their own chairs and are mesmerized for a few hours.

Not unlike viewings to this day between Coco and your theatre manager, there is some major whispering.

Later that night, little sis Ana wants the truth about Frankenstein, Did he kill the little girl in the movie? Did he die at the hands of the villagers? and Isabel want to go to sleep, so first she riffs realism and informs Ana that everything in movies is an illusion...

Ana demands to know why and Isabel's follow up to being pragmatic is to now write a story of her own. Isabel has seen Frankenstein just outside the village. Ana asks, How you can talk to him if he only comes out at night and Isabel responds, If you are his friend, you can talk to him whenever you like---just close your eyes and call him.

Ana's imagination is fed by her big sister's stories and pranks and Frankenstein is real to her. He materializes in the film in several forms, a rendering that is partly assisted by a deserting soldier.

Woven within this story of the two sisters and Frankenstein, is the relationship of Teresa and Fernando. The distance is palatably sad, but that pain is often usurped by the gorgeous lights and colors of their beehive.

These colors are deep goldens and browns and Ana's eyes are the soul of the movie. Music has often a whimsical cadence, soft flutes and out of tune pianos. Ana and Isabel's big house has a deserted elegance, and a wild mad scientist vibe with their father's glass hive which keeps the bees whirling.

The Spirit of the Beehive is breathtaking, watch it for a lyrical political allegory and for an incredible sister film...gracias mi hermana, Coco---er, Ana.

(yes the trailer has Greek subtitles)

IMDB

Criterion