The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)
Seen just for what it is, a story of a little girl and her precious innocence in a world seeming to teem with quiet adult mysteries, this is a beautiful and somewhat slow movie. Sometimes a movie can be so evocative and transporting, the slowness is a gift, a necessary quality for being absorbed and lost in another world. And an elegiac world, sad and embracing and heavenly all at once.
For me, thought, the slow pace began to weigh down the better parts of the movie, and in the simpler parts it become a distraction. In a few sections with somewhat awkward acting (a scene between the main woman, a kind of Nordic looking troubled soul, and a doctor, is glaringly bad), the movie showed its underbelly, which is really a bit full of itself. The metaphors are pushy and overused, the utterly sweet little girl the one unifying and transcendent element.
Again, just seen for what it is, set in 1940 Spain (just after its civil war, and during WWII, though Spain largely avoided the war because it was thoroughly fascist by then) it is filled with isolation and desolate landscapes and a kind of loneliness that goes beyond isolation. The key, and important, twist at the beginning, the arrival of a copy of the 1931 American movie "Frankenstein" (dubbed into Spanish), is a penetration of this sadness from outside of Spain, and outside of the rural world of these simple villagers. The little girl is rapt, and her acceptance of the monster in her heart, almost literally believing in him, is a metaphor for wanting more than what life is going to offer, but getting more than other might expect simply by looking for it, reaching out for the gentle monster of your dreams.
There are other metaphors, little ones like the out of tune piano, and large ones like the beehives, which inspire some inner monologues that push meaning far too hard. There is a second dim theme to the plot, about this woman having an affair that tears deep into her heart. There is a sense of flow to the movie, of broad horizons (the land is flat and barren), or repetition that builds on itself. It's a thoughtful movie, certainly, and a deliberate one, and a very slow one. It won't transport many viewers (though it has a growing and worshipful following among critics and movie buffs). I don't think the translation and subtitles were a problem. I saw it with a native Spanish speaker who was equally open to the movie's magic and equally dulled by its slow pace and its dwelling on small things far too long, as if taking for granted a patient and spellbound audience.
So you might have to see the movie for what most viewers, especially younger ones, no longer understand: it is a metaphor and almost a protest against the continuing if weakening fascist government of Spain in 1973. It had been 35 years since the civil war tipped in favor of the fascists, and the oppressive government had squashed Spain's development as an economy and as an artistic culture all that time. This was a typical faint but legible response, filled with subtle hints of defiance, wrapped in mystery and analogy as a way of getting by the censors.
But most of all, this is about human nature, beyond politics. It's about wanting more, about being alone in a family that should be very together. Enter with patience, and willingness to get lost in the mood of it all, because this is the soul of the movie, and it might just win you over.
Seen just for what it is, a story of a little girl and her precious innocence in a world seeming to teem with quiet adult mysteries, this is a beautiful and somewhat slow movie. Sometimes a movie can be so evocative and transporting, the slowness is a gift, a necessary quality for being absorbed and lost in another world. And an elegiac world, sad and embracing and heavenly all at once.
For me, thought, the slow pace began to weigh down the better parts of the movie, and in the simpler parts it become a distraction. In a few sections with somewhat awkward acting (a scene between the main woman, a kind of Nordic looking troubled soul, and a doctor, is glaringly bad), the movie showed its underbelly, which is really a bit full of itself. The metaphors are pushy and overused, the utterly sweet little girl the one unifying and transcendent element.
Again, just seen for what it is, set in 1940 Spain (just after its civil war, and during WWII, though Spain largely avoided the war because it was thoroughly fascist by then) it is filled with isolation and desolate landscapes and a kind of loneliness that goes beyond isolation. The key, and important, twist at the beginning, the arrival of a copy of the 1931 American movie "Frankenstein" (dubbed into Spanish), is a penetration of this sadness from outside of Spain, and outside of the rural world of these simple villagers. The little girl is rapt, and her acceptance of the monster in her heart, almost literally believing in him, is a metaphor for wanting more than what life is going to offer, but getting more than other might expect simply by looking for it, reaching out for the gentle monster of your dreams.
There are other metaphors, little ones like the out of tune piano, and large ones like the beehives, which inspire some inner monologues that push meaning far too hard. There is a second dim theme to the plot, about this woman having an affair that tears deep into her heart. There is a sense of flow to the movie, of broad horizons (the land is flat and barren), or repetition that builds on itself. It's a thoughtful movie, certainly, and a deliberate one, and a very slow one. It won't transport many viewers (though it has a growing and worshipful following among critics and movie buffs). I don't think the translation and subtitles were a problem. I saw it with a native Spanish speaker who was equally open to the movie's magic and equally dulled by its slow pace and its dwelling on small things far too long, as if taking for granted a patient and spellbound audience.
So you might have to see the movie for what most viewers, especially younger ones, no longer understand: it is a metaphor and almost a protest against the continuing if weakening fascist government of Spain in 1973. It had been 35 years since the civil war tipped in favor of the fascists, and the oppressive government had squashed Spain's development as an economy and as an artistic culture all that time. This was a typical faint but legible response, filled with subtle hints of defiance, wrapped in mystery and analogy as a way of getting by the censors.
But most of all, this is about human nature, beyond politics. It's about wanting more, about being alone in a family that should be very together. Enter with patience, and willingness to get lost in the mood of it all, because this is the soul of the movie, and it might just win you over.