The Spirit of the Beehive

The Spirit of the Beehive (Spanish: El espíritu de la colmena) is a 1973 Spanish drama film directed by Víctor Erice. The film was Erice's feature directorial debut and is considered a masterpiece of Spanish cinema. The film focuses on a young girl named Ana and her fascination with the 1931 American horror film Frankenstein and also explores her family life and schooling. Many have noted the symbolism present throughout the film, as an artistic choice, and a way Erice avoided the censors. Despite censors in Spain, which was under the Franco regime at the time of its making and release, the film still manages to symbolically portray Spanish life under Franco's rule. And while censors were alarmed by some of the film's suggestive content about the authoritarian regime, they allowed it to be released in Spain, based on its success abroad, and the assumption that most of the public would have no real interest in seeing "a slow-paced, thinly-plotted and 'arty' picture." The film has been called a "bewitching portrait of a child's haunted inner life". Plot Six-year-old Ana is a shy girl who lives in the manor house in an isolated Spanish village on the Castilian plateau with her parents Fernando and Teresa and her elder sister, Isabel. The year is 1940, and the civil war has just ended with the Francoist victory over the Republican forces. Her aging father spends most of his time absorbed in tending to and writing about his beehives; her much younger mother is caught up in daydreams about a distant lover, to whom she writes letters. Ana's closest companion is Isabel, who loves her but cannot resist playing on her little sister's gullibility.