El espíritu de la colmena (1973)

User Rating:

8.0/10   

Director:

Víctor Erice

Writers:

Víctor Erice (screenplay)
Víctor Erice (story)

Release Date:

5 January 1977 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A sensitive seven-year-old girl living a small village in 1940 rural Spain is traumatized after viewing James Whale's "Frankenstein" and drifts into her own fantasy world.

Plot Keywords:

Village | Rural | Spanish Civil War | Fugitive | Cat

Awards:

7 wins

Cast

Fernando Fernán Gómez	...	Fernando
Teresa Gimpera	...	Teresa
Ana Torrent	...	Ana
Isabel Tellería	...	Isabel
Ketty de la Cámara	...	Milagros, la criada
Estanis González	...	Guardia civil
José Villasante	...	The Frankenstein Monster
Juan Margallo	...	The Fugitive
Laly Soldevila	...	Doña Lucía, the teacher
Miguel Picazo	...	The Doctor

Also Known As:

The Spirit of the Beehive

Runtime:

97 min | USA:95 min

Country:

Spain

Language:

Spanish

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:AA (original rating) | UK:PG (re-rating) | USA:Unrated | Netherlands:16

Filming Locations:

Hoyuelos, Segovia, Castilla y León, Spain

Company:

Elías Querejeta Producciones Cinematográficas S.L.

Trivia:

Voted third best Spanish film by professionals and critics in 1996 Spanish cinema centenary.

Goofs:

Continuity: When the fugitive jumps from the train and rolls down the hill, he's wearing boots, but in the next shot he's wearing low-cut shoes.

Quotes:

Ana: [unable to sleep] Isabel?
Isabel: [opening her eyes] What?
Ana: [whispering] Tell me what you were going to tell me.
Isabel: [whispering] About what?
Ana: The movie.
Isabel: Not now... Tomorrow.
Ana: Now... You promised. Why did he kill the girl, and why did they kill him after that?... You don't know - you're a liar.
Isabel: They didn't kill him, and he didn't kill the girl.
Ana: How do you know? How do you know they didn't die?
Isabel: Everything in the movies is fake. It's all a trick. Besides, I've seen him alive.
[...]

Movie Connections:

References Frankenstein (1931)

graceful and elegant

Like many of the other commentators here, I had heard about this movie long before I had ever had a chance to see it, although it typically is mentioned as one of Spain's greatest films. It definitely is. It is masterfully directed and I have not been able to stop thinking about it for days.

The story is elliptically told and demands your participation in making sense of the narrative, but it's also leisurely paced and allows you to breathe in the atmosphere rather than forcing a particular reading on you. One thing you wouldn't guess from reading the other comments is how this is as much a film about nature as about history--it is like a poem of the countryside in winter, with long vistas of stone farmhouses framed against the rising sun. The film with the most similar visual palette is Malick's "Days of Heaven", but that film feels simplistic compared to the full immersion in history and memory presented in this film--a much more complete vision of the past.

Ana Torrent is unforgettable. I can think of no better film about children, yet (as with so many other things in this movie) it doesn't feel forced--these kids aren't just the director's pawns, but real, living beings.

If you get a chance to see it, definitely make the effort.