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 | Shadow

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:

Cinematographer Luis Cuadrado was going blind at the time this film was made. He eventually went completely blind and committed suicide in 1980.

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:

[last lines]
Isabel: It's me, Ana... It's me, Ana...

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Velvet Goldmine (1998)

The greatest film about childhood

One of my all time favourite films. The first time I watched it I thought it was nice, the second time, some years later, I was a bit disappointed - perhaps I had overblown it in my mind - the third time, another year later, I approached it with the right attitude and the whole thing came superbly alive.

All is serene for two village girls until a travelling cinema shows "Frankenstein" in their village. Perhaps they are a little bored - and there is a sense that the village is holding its breath (due to the war) - but after this the girls allow little creepy moments to begin pervading their lives. Theresa is only playing, but Anna is not.

There are many simple, mesmerising scenes: Anna standing transfixed by the railway line as the train approaches; Theresa almost strangling the cat and painting her lips with blood from her pricked finger, then later pretending to be dead in a dreamy, rich, prolonged, silent scene.

The old barn is one of the most atmospheric settings in all cinema. The silence and stillness of the place, remote from the ordinary world, makes it instantly magical, and the calm photography captures every nuance of mood. There is one glorious transition when the camera, resting on Anna's sleeping face, cuts to sleeping face of the fugitive in the barn, then cuts again back to Anna's face - but this time she is standing in the barn watching him. Wonderful.

There are also funny moments: the two girls running screaming from the cinema; laughing over their bowls of milk at breakfast; learning anatomy with "Don Jose" in the classroom (another incarnation, in Anna's imagination, of Frankenstein). There is also a fine moment when the dog (great little canine performance here) finds Anna in the ruins.

Don't be fooled by all the pretentious-sounding comments that the key to understanding this film is really the Spanish civil war. That is the context, and there are metaphors to be had (like the faded aristocratic house and the exhausted lives of the girls' parents), but this is not a film about politics or even society, forget about that and dwell on something much more important, something that will always persist: the imagination of childhood that has no idea yet whether the world is ordinary or extraordinary; the powerlessness of the child in the grip of tentative imaginings created out of fear and fascination, and drawn, if only by curiosity, towards a compelling but inexplicable fate, and yielding to it, only to find it chimerical.