La colmena

Due to the recent death of Nobel Prize Winner Camilo José Cela, the Spanish TV showed this wonderful film as an homage. It's an adaptation of one of his most famous novels, "La Colmena" (The Beehive) and what an adaptation!

A terrific cast with the best of Spanish cinema then (early 80's): José Sacristán, Paco Rabal, Victoria Abril, José Luis López Vázquez, José Sazatornil "Saza", Agustín González and in brief appearances a lot of excellent secondary actors like Luis Ciges, Miguel Rellán or Paco Algora.

The movie follows several characters who live in the same city, Madrid, and whose problems are more or less the same. Spanish Civil War has just ended, Franco rules the country and the poverty, the hunger and the repression affect the entire population. This can be seen on the sad character played by Sacristán, a homeless writer who's forced to spend the nights in a miserable brothel.

Besides, those from upper classes (mostly, Franco followers) are also well described in the character of Agustín González, who smoke expensive cigars while others near to him live in a complete poverty.

A wonderful film, one of the best spanish movies of the 80's, made by someone with real talent (Mario Camus) who 2 years later directed an astonishing masterpiece called LOS SANTOS INOCENTES (The Holy Innocents).

An splendid film full of emotion , drama , social habits and feeling of sorrow . Concerning the post-Spanish Civil war and regarding the Cafe La Delicia, based on the novel of the same title from Camilo Jose Cela, "La Colmena" , it results to be a downbeat and sad retelling about some hard years . Through a microcosm made up of a multitude of characters whose axis is the cafe La Delicia where most of them meet to forget about hunger and cold , a crude vision of the winter of 1942 in Madrid is given, at the beginning of the hard postwar, the years of hunger, restrictions and ration cards. With the stories of many people in the Madrid of 1942, just the postwar of the spanish civil war, as the main theme of the moviep is the contrast between the poor poets, surviving close to misery under the Franco's regime.

This is an engaging depiction of a misfit group of roles in Spain , post-Spanish Civil War and whose existence gets very hard for them due to poorness , starvation and difficult economic conditions . It's a thought-provoking drama about suffering , sadness , sacrifice and feeling with interesting character studio on a varied assortment of individuals . It's a brilliant and touching film with some sordid elements , though slow-moving at times and tiring, but being developed with intelligence and sensibility enough . There is a contrast between the upper and lower classes , between the winners of the war, the emerging class of the people that makes easy money with illegal business and the helpless, unfortunate citizens. To close his almost thirty as a screenwriter and producer at the head of ¨Agata Films¨ production, the producer/writer Jose Luis Dibildos plans to move away from his traditional comedies and adapts the best novel by Camilo Jose Cela . Based on his script and after several delays, caused by the change of director , it ends up being effectively directed by the great specialist and novels adapter Mario Camus. Thanks to a strong and well structured script , tight production and an extensive cast of leading figures , including Camilo José Cela himself , it wins the Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival . Main cast is frankly fabulous : Jose Sacristán , Victoria Abril , Concha Velasco , Emilio Gutiérrez Caba , Ana Belén , Francisco Rabal , all of them are really awesome . Being well accompanied by a good support cast with a lot of familiar faces , such as : Mario Pardo, Luis Ciges , Fiorella Faltoyano, José Sazatornil, José Luis López Vázquez, Mary Carrillo, José Bódalo, Charo López , Marta Fernández Muro , Queta Claver , Elvira Quintillá , Francisco Algora , Imanol Arias , Maria Luisa Ponte , Agustín González , Rafael Alonso, Antonio Resines, Manuel Zarzo, José Vivó, Luis Barbero, among others.

It displays atmospheric and evocative cinematography by Hans Burmann and appropriate musical score by Antón Garcia Abril . The motion picture was compellingly directed by Mario Camus following his particular style . Camus was born in Santander , Cantabria , location in which often shoots his films . He worked with Carlos Saura in several screenplays during the early 60s Los Golfos (1960), Llanto Por Un Bandido (1964)), and also directed some shorts . His first feature films were Los Farsantes (1963) and Young Sánchez (1964), a movie about boxing which won the Best Film Award at the Buenos Aires Festival . Mario has an important career with film and television adaptations quite remarkable , as he efficiently directed yarns based on notorious writers such as Perez Galdos, García Lorca, Cela Camilo José Miguel Delibes . During various decades he touched styles varying from romantic comedies and musicals to splendid adaptations from famous novels, as is the case of the prestigious TV series "Fortunata y Jacinta" (1979) . In 1983 he was given the 'Medalla Oro De Las Bellas Artes' (Arts Gold Medal), and one year later he prepared his most successful work both with public and critic : Los Santos Inocentes (1984), an adaptation from the novel by Miguel Delibes. Mario is an expert on interesting dramas as proved in ¨The days of the past ¨,¨The house of Bernarda Alba¨ , ¨La Colmena¨ which won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival , Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain 1983 Winner CEC Award Best Film Best Actor Rafael Alonso , Best Supporting Actor , Luis Barbero, Best Supporting Actress Mary Carrillo Best Director , Mario Camus , Best Screenplay , José Luis Dibildos ,and many others . Rating : 7/10 , Above average ; it's a decent film though sometimes sad and downbeat .

More or less following the architectural structure of the novel, leaving out great chunks rather like a glacier dropping over and breaking up on reaching its last morrain, this film reflects the lives of ordinary people in ordinary Madrid in the post-civil war years, but from a rather biased angle. That is to say that in his novel Cela painted a few sketchy characterizations, strung them all together in no definite order, and hoped for the best.

The film more or less did the same.

Without any doubt, we can glean certain relevant points from either the novel, or the film, whichever you prefer, but at least the latter is shorter. From rather whimsical scenes in which the dialogues are of maximum importance but barely reach more than a level of superficialities (anything deeper would have worried the censors), Cela cooked up an aimless wander around his dozens of persons without reaching any depths, without broadening characteriological perceptions, such that you feel you have been reading about people who only existed (barely existed) in the author's own imagination. The film corrects this anathema a little, simply because the characters become visible and thus more real-like. Helped greatly by the sets used which give a really good impression of those years, especially in the `Café Delicia'.

The film boasted the participation of just about everybody in Spain at the time who had any kind of name in cinema, theatre or television, and even the author himself had a small part.

For anybody interested in Spanish life but more specifically the Spanish language, the film is worth its time. But it is not worth wasting any more time over. It's too banal, floating over too many participants without any specific purpose. It has its moments which might just drag out some wry grimace or sardonic chuckle.