Spirit of the Beehive (1973) dir. Víctor Erice

Maintaining this blog has been a little more worrisome than I thought it would be, and that's because I worry too much. 

I remember making the first post thinking I was just gonna review movies. But then I wanted to have more of a gimmick, and that's when I said I would review the AFI top 100 list. I later thought I should review the National Film Registry. And I'd still like to do that. 

But for now...

There are 625 films on the registry. I've always been fascinated it. According to its Wiki page, it includes everything from abandoned and neglected films to TV movies, newsreels (Hindenburg Disaster Footage), home movies (The Zapruder film), and music videos (Michael Jackson's Thriller). 

One of the most interesting things in the home video category is Disneyland Dream, which is just 16mm footage of a family's trip to Disneyland that they won in a contest. But get this, a young Steve Martin shows up 20 minutes into the film for a few brief moments, walking in the lower part of the frame. He worked there at the time. 

Anyway, all this really has nothing to do with the subject of this blog post. I only bring it up to say that I have not followed through with my promise to gimmick up my blog, as the movie I watched yesterday is on no lists, and is not recent. 

It's called The Spirit of the Beehive, and it might be one you've never heard of, so that's why I'm talking about it. 

More On the Director
This is the first of only three feature films by Spanish filmmaker, Víctor Erice. He's done several short subjects both before and after his three features, but hasn't really made much after 1992. Although, he was on the jury of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. 

He lived through the oppressive regime of Francisco Franco, and much of his work is influenced by this, like many other Spanish Filmmakers. 

Because the regime was a completely totalitarian dictatorship that didn't end until Franco's death in 1975, filmmakers had to completely disguise their anti-fascist messages with very subtle symbolism. Luis Bunuel, the guy who made Un Chien Andalou (1929) (An Andalusian Dog) with Salvadore Dali, was another filmmaker, like Erice, who had to struggle with the government to make films, and some of those also have political messages that made it through the censors. 

Many critics agree that the crumbling family life in the Spirit of the Beehive, the references to worker bees, the differences between the two female siblings, all represent different criticisms of the dictatorship. 

Víctor Erice

While this is true, the film is also just a very beautiful, simple tale of childhood. And while showing a childhood tale, it shows the drama that occurs when people feel alienated, and what happens when people who are each going through separate life journeys alienate themselves and others instead of uniting. To make it even better, it shows these conflicts through parallels to the commonly known story of Frankenstein.

The Film 

Ana is a naive, doe-eyed, and highly adventurous and inquisitive young girl. She lives in a fairly nice if not rustic farmhouse in rural Spain during 1940, with the Francoist regime in full, infantile force. She lives with her mother and father, and sister, Isabel. It's kind of hard to describe the plot because it is so understated and simple.

I don't know a lot about Spanish cinema from that time (or let's face it, any time), but from what I can gather, directors were, aside from making hidden political statements, looking for a more pure and simplistic form of cinema and storytelling. It would be best not to mistake this for bland, because the films, especially this one, are incredibly rich-- visually and performance-wise. 

But in regards to the story being told, there is an event and subsequent events that tie everything together, and while it moves at a very slow and meditative pace, it's exciting and fascinating nonetheless.

A travelling movie (basically a beat up truck taking a projector and film reels from village to village) shows up in Ana's village in the Castilian plateau. The movie is a Spanish dub of Frankenstein from 1931.

A beautiful shot in the film. I love seeing smoke through light rays.

 The townspeople, almost exclusively children (or at least, a heavier emphasis is put on them as audience members), watch the movie in fright and amazement. The scene from the film where the monster throws the girl into the water, not knowing it will kill her, is removed, and instead the scene where he carries her corpse into the village is shown with very little context.  

This causes Ana to question what happened to the girl, and why Frankenstein's monster was killed by the townspeople. She forms an obsession with this tragic creature, and is sometimes afraid of it as well. Her sister shows her an abandoned barn and says the monster lives there. One day she finds a rebel from the civil war hiding in the barn, and it is possible that she believes he is the monster.

Meanwhile, her sister, a few years her senior, starts to yearn for womanhood. Her mother sits vacant and longing in the house, sending letters to an unseen lover. The father tends to his bees, and writes about them extensively in his study with hexagonally patterned, yellow tinted windows that confine him in a human honeycomb. 

Each member of the family is struggling with something different. There's a very quiet emotional torment going on in all of the characters, even young Ana who struggles to understand why everyone walls themselves up in their doubts and troubles, her only problem being her longing to know more about the monster, to understand what he is. She also wants to know if he's a spirit, and what a spirit is. 

The mother is unhappy in her marriage, and the father can only think about his bees, and how their mindlessness and repetitive nature vexes him (as said before, this is an allusion to the worker bee life of Spain's oppressed citizens). One of the most often cited and striking aspects of the movie is the fact that the husband and wife are never in the same shot for the entire film. 

Like I said before, it's a slow film, but it's still fascinating. A lot of people don't like slow films with plots like this, that take their time to unfold and don't ascend to anything particularly climactic. Sometimes I feel that way. But I think there are two things that really great films like this make a point of doing. 

One is, for me anyway, avoiding a lot of dialogue. I'd much rather see characters doing things, even if I have to question the actions, than hear them talk. What's great about this film is that they both accomplish that and make it extremely appropriate, because the movie is about children. Children don't really experience things through conversation. They are visual and tactile learners, for the most part. I think we can all relate to that, because as children, weird and inspiring things can simply happen in front of us that we remember for a long time. We do things that we go back and think about as adults, and wonder why we did it. 

There's a shot in the film that's really good at showing this: 

On one of the days Ana explores the abandoned barn, she sees this large footprint. There's no explanation as to why it's there (it is possibly from the fugitive soldier). This large footprint, to her, can come from no one but the large, hulking monster. She stares at it, and puts her foot into it. Her facial expression in the scene is nervous, and yet she doesn't run away, she examines it further. She is both afraid of and fascinated by the monster. And what's more is, she identifies with him, with his loneliness. She is constantly compared to the monster. Actually, there are many comparisons throughout the film to Frankenstein.

The schoolchildren assemble a man for an anatomy lesson

The father describes showing some bees to a colleague in his journal, the wording mirrors Victor Frankenstein's exact sentiments after seeing his creation alive.

It's cool as all hell.

I think I'm especially delighted about it because I just read Frankenstein not a few months ago. 

While Ana is compared to the creation, her father is compared to the mad doctor. And the fact that he did, in fact, create her, makes it even more compelling. Does he abhor the family he created because he has failed to make it perfect, much like Victor Frankenstein abhors his creation for being imperfect?

In a political or historical context, this comparison might make the father a symbol of Franco, a cold mad scientist, controlling a hive of worker bees. 

The sister, Isabel, is seen by critics to represent the narcissism and greed of the regime, as she teases Ana and acts as if she thinks she is much smarter and better than her. Subtly, of course. The sisters are also shown as very fond of each other. 

Maybe the mom represents misplaced priorities. 

And that's the second thing I think a movie like this needs and does well-- compelling characters. Not just complex characters, but unique and compelling ones. Character's that sometimes do things we don't understand. 

Oh, and the movie is eye cocaine. 

All the barren empty landscapes, again, are believed by critics to be another politcal allegory. I think they compliment the distance in the family, more importantly. 

I probably have a lot more to say about this film, but what I've covered should just about do it. 

Definitely watch this.  

If you like Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth [2006], The Devil's Backbone [2001]), then you'll like, if not love, this. The focus on children, adventure, and just the general tone that seems mythical and mysterious is something this film and the films of Del Toro share. There's no way he didn't draw influence from this film. 

Movies I Also Saw Recently
City of God (2002)*, I Have Found It (2000)**, Symbiopsychotaxiplasm (1968)***, Ghost (1990)****

*re-watch. Saw it when I was around 12 and couldn't comprehend the greatness of it. Watching it now was so good and so hard to watch. Like getting the best massage of your life but being slapped in the face with cold rubber. 

**this was the silliest, cringiest, and most entertaining movie I've seen in a while. A bollywood musical at its finest. 

***This was the weirdest, most thought provoking and entertaining movie I've seen in a while. I would explain what it was about, but that would be too hard. For the love of god, click this 

**** As corny as it is, this movie gives me the feels every damn time. 

Seriously, man... why you gotta be so sad, movie? 

ALSO
I've talked a lot about obscure movies here. So in the spirit of discovery, let me embed two great short films, one of which many have seen, another which very few have seen. 

The first is An Andalusian Dog, because I mentioned it earlier and it's great.

The second is called The Girl Chewing Gum and it's an experimental short from 1976. It's mesmerizing. It's not a collage film, like the previous films I've talked about on this blog, but still an experiment. I kind of want to give you a premise, or at least some context. But I saw it without context, and that was a major part of my enjoyment factor. So just watch it, you'll eventually catch on. And hopefully love it.