The Spirit of the Beehive
Composite Score: 85.17
Starring: Fernando Fernán Gómez, Teresa Gimpera, Ana Torrent, Isabel Tellería, Ketty de la Cámara, José Villasante, and Juan Margallo
Director: Víctor Erice
Writers: Ángel Fernández Santos and Víctor Erice
Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Coming of Age
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Box Office: $148,472 worldwide
Why should you Watch This Film?
The Spirit of the Beehive is Víctor Erice’s film about a family living in a Castilian village in 1940, at the start of Francisco Franco’s rule of Spain. It follows Ana and her sister Isabela whose parents, Fernando and Teresa, are fairly distant from one another (in both age and emotion) and from their children. After a screening of Frankenstein (1931) in their town, Ana becomes concerned about why the monster killed the little girl and why the people then killed the monster, sparking her sister to jokingly tell her that the monster is actually a spirit who lives in a nearby abandoned farmhouse. The adventures of Ana’s imagination and reality soon become an allegory for life under the Franco regime in Spain – lied to, isolated, and increasingly tragic. It stars Ana Torrent and Isabel Tellería as the sisters, and Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera as their parents. Its influence on future films, specifically the works of Guillermo del Toro, and its artful critique of the Franco regime mark it as one of the best films of mid-century Spanish cinema.
Why shouldn’t you Watch This Film?
As films that explore children’s perception of the societal shifts at the beginning of Franco’s regime by showcasing their fantastical imaginings go, I’d put The Spirit of the Beehive in a distant second behind Guillermo del Toro’s masterpiece, Pan’s Labyrinth. Both films look intensely at this particular period from a child’s perspective, and both do it artfully and tragically, but the self-editing due to potential censorship and political backlash holds back Erice’s film from reaching its full potential. Obviously, Pan’s Labyrinth could not exist without The Spirit of the Beehive, and if you can, I’d strongly recommend watching both films as a double feature. However, I know that most audiences have limited time and resources, so I can’t say that there’s much that The Spirit of the Beehive does that Pan’s Labyrinth doesn’t do better besides its movie references and the haunting eyes of Ana.
So wait, why should you Watch This Film?
In drawing on the well-known story of Frankenstein, Erice offers his audience a familiar parallel for the devolution of society in Franco’s Spain. Like the monster in the 1931 film, Ana and Isabela, and even Teresa and Fernando, are not responsible for the isolation and mistrust that they feel. It is their fascistic government that has thrust such things upon them and, more broadly, upon society as a whole. In their desire to “fix” a failing economic status and to reinsert themselves into the European political games, the Spanish people remade their society through death and warfare, sowing distrust at every turn, leading to isolation and tragedy at all levels. Ana’s loss of innocence after learning of the death of her ”spirit” only mirrors the lost innocence of Spanish society when it (at times unwittingly) allowed Franco and his politics to become the dominant force in the nation. The film is allegory upon allegory, with plenty of symbolism to complicate things even more, but if you can wade through the film’s layers, it offers a scathing look at the impacts of fascism and at the specific impact of Franco on the people and culture of Spain over the course of his regime.
Erice’s tactful breakdown of fascist ideals and culture in The Spirit of the Beehive takes this film from being just a charming, if tragic, coming-of-age tale and makes it into something great, an critique of a modern political regime against the backdrop of a charming, if tragic, coming-of-age tale. Its inevitable comparison to its successor, Pan’s Labyrinth, will only result in losses for Beehive, but its use of allusion to create allegory and the wonder of the actresses at its center still make this a film that should be viewed if you have any interest in the period at all. It is currently available to stream on the Criterion Channel if you happen to fall into that category.