User reviews

I was about sixteen years old when I first saw The Spirit Of The Beehive, the first so-called "art house" movie I was ever fully confronted with. I say "confronted" because I had simply never seen anything like it before, and in a way I felt almost offended by its ambiguity and symbolism. How dare a movie suggest I tie all the loose ends together? I want everything on a plate, right there, explained! Then I watched it again. And again. And eventually it dawned on me: Film-making does not necessarily have to be about what we are *meant* to inscribe into something - it's what we, personally, subjectively, read into it, based on our experience and perspective of the world. Victor Erice's Espiritu De La Colmena introduced me to a whole new approach to film and cinema, and one which paved the way to my admiration for directors like Tarkovsky, Marker, and generally any unconventional film-maker under the sun. For that alone it holds a special resonance to me.

While there is definitely a point to be made that this film is, first and foremost, a haunting look at the innocence of childhood, the subversive political meaning was something which is primarily the result of an attempt on my behalf to tie all the loose ends together, and the conclusion below is something I arrived at based on my own personal understanding of the narrative.

On the surface, The Spirit Of The Beehive is about a family which attempts to cope with the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. It bears mentioning that the fact that this film even dares to address the conflict in such a direct manner suggests that, two years before Franco's death, the tight censorship regime in Spain was slowly but surely loosening its grip of the domestic film industry. Up to that point many films made in Spain during the Franco era were only able to address the civil war or Franco's regime in a strongly metaphorical manner or via subversive narratives (a case in point being much of Bunuel's work, albeit done in exile, or Saura's La Caza). In fact, much of Spanish cinema during that point in history can be regarded as an excellent case study in how allegories can be used as a way of averting tight censorship.

That said, political commentary on a tangible level would not have passed the censors even at such a late stage in Franco's reign, and thus most of the criticism in ...Colmena is driven by a sense of mutual understanding between spectator and narrative. The start of the film is a case in point: a shot of a few children watching James Whale's Frankenstein (with the narrator proclaiming that "You are about to see a monster") is followed by a cut to the girl protagonist's (Ana's) father. For now assuming that this narrative is driven exclusively by metaphors, does Victor Erice suggest, with that cut, that the girl's father is the "monster" in question? Or, does he, on a more profound level equate the word father to monster? Franco called himself the "father of the nation", and with that knowledge in mind an audience could easily read that scene as a highly ambiguous, yet still extremely effective, criticism of Franco (ie. suggestively calling Franco a monster). However, due to its strongly ambiguous nature, not a single censor would be able to pinpoint that scene and say, without any discernible doubt, that this is indeed the case. It's a wonderful example of allegorical film-making, and how film techniques can be generally used to make an intrinsic statement which relies as much to the techniques applied as it does on the audience's intelligence and ability to understand the more profound meaning behind the images.

I remember once reading the viewpoint that Ana herself represents the Spanish nation, and I can see what the intention of that statement is when you consider the monster=Franco equation I outlined above. The monster Ana meets in her daydreams (as she imagines meeting the Boris Karloff figure she saw at the Frankenstein screen) is a figure which lulls her into a false sense of security and turns out to be a threatening presence; and the symbolism itself becomes very plain once the monster=Franco and Ana=Spain (though I'll admit that this is not the most original reading of the film, and aditionally one which doesn't even begin to scrape at the amount of symbolism apparent).

If only Erice was as prolific as he is imaginative, since El Espiritu De La Colmena makes up for only one third of his entire output in over thirty years (his other two films being the equally brilliant El Sur and Quince Tree Of The Sun). Needless to say, it's cinematic genius, and a flawless work of art bar none.

Erice's film about a young girl who sits through a screening of the l931 classic Frankenstein with her older sister moves slowly along but has some startling moments that unexpectedly bubble up. The girl (Ana Torrent) has a face that would melt anyone's heart and gives a terrific performance for a child (or anyone). The older sister (Isabel Telleria) also terrific, likes to lead her little sister along, and convinces her that Frankenstein exists in the here and now and can be easily found in an abandoned farm or by simply closing your eyes. The farm is a much more compelling setting and seeing the little girl alone there gives you the chills because you know one day someone might actually show up and while it probably won't be Frankenstein, it could be someone dangerous. Her inevitable disillusionment is dramatically presented when she runs away from her home. Her adventure takes the viewer along on a emotional ride especially when we see our little friend sitting down beside the toxic mushrooms that her father told her and her sister never to eat. Set in the seemingly endless Spanish countryside in 1940 and nicely filmed in color, it is a quiet little film with a big dramatic impact.

I was not aware of the political significance of this movie when I saw it, but I was struck by the eerie, quiet way the story built up scene by scene, with hardly any dialog, and hardly any camera movement. This quietness allows you to reflect on what the meaning might be as it sifts gradually into your consciousness, leading to sudden realizations that come as quite a shock.

I found I had a strong empathy for the little girl who is trying to make sense of a story she has been told (in the movie) that has a powerful grip on her heart and imagination, and has an apparent connection with bigger, drastic events the real world, in a way she tries to understand.

I think it is really rather profound and affecting, even if you know nothing of Spanish history.

Like many of the other commentators here, I had heard about this movie long before I had ever had a chance to see it, although it typically is mentioned as one of Spain's greatest films. It definitely is. It is masterfully directed and I have not been able to stop thinking about it for days.

The story is elliptically told and demands your participation in making sense of the narrative, but it's also leisurely paced and allows you to breathe in the atmosphere rather than forcing a particular reading on you. One thing you wouldn't guess from reading the other comments is how this is as much a film about nature as about history--it is like a poem of the countryside in winter, with long vistas of stone farmhouses framed against the rising sun. The film with the most similar visual palette is Malick's "Days of Heaven", but that film feels simplistic compared to the full immersion in history and memory presented in this film--a much more complete vision of the past.

Ana Torrent is unforgettable. I can think of no better film about children, yet (as with so many other things in this movie) it doesn't feel forced--these kids aren't just the director's pawns, but real, living beings.

If you get a chance to see it, definitely make the effort.

Has a child performer given as pure and brilliant a performance as Ana Torrent did in Victor Erice's allegorical masterpiece? This film has everything going for it; great performances, a honey hued atmosphere courtesy of Luis Cuadrado's genius as a cinematographer, and subtle, dreamy direction by Mr. Erice. I had often heard many works described as "dreams" in particular Bergman's works ("The Silence," "Hour of the Wolf"). As far as I'm concerned, this film ranks right beside the works of the master. It is an intense and involving work of art, which beckons us to look at a violent world, through the eyes of the children populating the screen. Many images stand out; among them the girls jumping over a fire and Ana sitting next to the "monster." This film should be seen by anyone who appreciates brilliant cinema. It will not dissapoint you, I guarantee.

What I am most affected each time I see Erice's this movie is his ability to convey the world of a child to us sometimes even without depending on the dialogues. Instead, he prefers creating a beautiful atmosphere and feelings by using the faces, looks, the light and the silence.

We can give an alternative name to this movie as "the spirit of the house", for the director tries to show what is going on in this house whose windows resemble to honeycombs. Erice deliberately chooses not to give any shots with all members of the family, as there is serious feeling of alienation between father and mother, and total lack of communication and affection between them, and from them towards their children. Under that situation the only person whom Ana could touch with her words, plays and questions is her sister Isabel. Their house looks like a beehive with the queen bee, male worker bee, and child bees performing their duties only by being in the same house without touching to each other.

When Ana's best friend and her sister played on her trust and fears by deceiving her, she totally turned inward and found the image and the dream of Frankenstein ready for her friendship and to give her feeling of closeness. After she met the wounded Republican soldier, her Frankenstein's image came into being in his existence, who is considered as dangerous and outside the society by adults just like in the original Frankenstein movie. Like the girl in the latter, Ana does not see the fugitive as how adults define Frankenstein, as something to be run away from. Instead, she considers him as Frankenstein who could be her friend. I see the shadow of the "monster" on this movie used beautifully and magically by the director.

During the 97 minutes of the movie, Erice and his cinematographer Luis Cuadrado both reflect the heart of a child to us with their magical scenes, and skillfully convey the grey feeling of the civil war in the background without straightforwardly pointing their fingers to it.

As you can see on IMDb there is a lot of praise for this film. It is my understanding that it was voted within the third greatest Spanish films ever made. It's good but I wouldn't go that far..

Many people here have mentioned the historical metaphors within the film but I won't delve into that, I thought the story was completely about the main character Ana.

First off, the actress who played Ana was very authentic, with a striking face full of emotion. She genuinely believed a lot of what was happening in the film including the Frankenstein monster being real! Such authenticity means it's worth seeing it for that alone and that is where the films true beauty lies...

For all this though, for what is essentially a beautifully shot film with great cinematography and performances, the film was a bit dull! It was only after the first 45 minutes or so that I started to wake up. There was a whole sub-plot between the parents marriage which I felt added little weight to the rest of the story.. There just wasn't a whole lot I felt I hadn't seen before.

So for me, I can see the film for what it was worth and why it received such accolades. But it was a little too dull for me to consider it "Great"

I recall one of my absolute favourite films ever The Fall, which also included a little girl who believed so much of the movie around her, that film was gripping from start to finish and never dull for a moment. Strange it hasn't gotten the praise it so deserved..

"Spirit of the Beehive (El Espíritu de la colmena)" is a lovely insight into the mind of a child, where fantasy mixes with reality and stories with dreams. This is a beautiful metaphor for the magic of the movies and co-writer/director Víctor Erice illustrates the connection further by having the impact of the film "Frankenstein" with Boris Karloff on a young girl as the pivotal plot point.

Ana Torrent is a wide-eyed innocent who carries the film, as we completely enter into how she integrates her daily life, both the quotidian happenings and the unusual, with scary stories her older sister teases her with and with the film. Her beautiful eyes are expressive and haunting. As someone who had an older sister with all kinds of outlandish tales that were gullibly believed, the sibling teasing is the most natural I've seen on film.

Erice has a completely original take on the Frankenstein story, no matter how many times it has been referenced in other movies. "Ana" powerfully relates to the little girl in the film, even though she does not understand any of the darker emotions or outcomes. The film inspires her to seek out misfits and outcasts, with unintended consequences and impacts on the adult world.

The adult world is the weakest part of the film, or it's so heavy with symbolism about the 1940's period when the film takes place or of the end of Francoism in Spain when the film was made that it's lost for a viewer first seeing the film today. While sometimes the parents', teachers' and servants' behavior seems mysterious if we were just seeing it from her perspective, their obliviousness and self-involvement in their own intellectual and romantic pursuits aren't really explained, even as her father's pompous hobby somehow gives the film its title. It might be some sort of commentary on how adults have their own way of blending fantasy and reality or some other political commentary.

Seen in a new 35 MM print at NYC's Film Forum, the cinematography by Luis Cuadrado was stunning. The rural scenes of fields, forest and horizon --where dangers and threats always lurk beneath the pastoral--are beautiful, with simply gorgeous looking vignettes of childhood experiences.

I wonder if this insightful look inside a child's mind influenced such films as "I'm Not Scared (Io non ho paura)" and "Paperhouse." but the film seems so fresh and creative I was surprised that it was made in 1973.

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.

This film has the distinguish of being one of the few films that was symbolic of life in Spain under General Franco... at least while Franco was still alive. There is so much with the beehive metaphor and the isolation...

I wondered if this film in any way inspired Guillermo del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth". Both have Spanish children with monstrous friends escaping the horrors of the dictatorship... And a quick search proves my hunch correct. Del Toro has said, "Spirit of the Beehive is one of those seminal movies that seeped into my very soul." Such praise!

When was the last time a movie made you swoon, I mean physically? I waited around 30 years to view this quiet, contemplative film touching on an excursion into a child's mind and a portrait of innocence not yet seen or experienced, by me anyway. After finally importing a copy, it was worth waiting all that time and a textbook example of one of those quite rare instances when you realize that yes, cinema can be magic and transcendent. I'm not going to throw words around like 'masterpiece' and the like with this film as that would somehow seem vulgar. What it deserves is a quiet respect, which I felt also emanating strongly from the film itself. Not a lot happens. In a small Castilian outpost, James Whale's Frankenstein is shown for the populace. From an austere homefront, two young girls navigate sweeping beige and brown plains and share a discovery. One forms a spiritual connection which will remain with her always. Fragile, slow and haunting, Spirit Of The Beehive is about many things, you just have to construe it on your own personal level. And believe....

It's somewhere on the Castilian plateau around 1940. A traveling movie show brings the classic Frankenstein to town attracting all the eager youngsters. Ana and her older sister Isabel are fascinated by the meeting of the little girl and the monster. Ana can't understand why the girl was killed but Isabel assures her that it's all fake. In fact, she's seen the monster alive in real life as a spirit in the night and living in an abandoned farmhouse nearby. They go there and imagine the invisible giant. Then Ana finds a real wounded Republican soldier starts hiding in the farmhouse from the Franco forces. The girls' father tends to the beehives and writes while their mother daydreams about her lover who had gone to war.

This is a pretty slow movie. It has some interesting shots, and a lot of long uncut scenes. The girls are amazing. The scene of them watching the movie is glorious. There's only one scene where the family is all together. It's not that loving family. Quite frankly, the parents can be just figures off screen for all I care. Ana Torrent has such a doll face. The camera can exist just by pointing at her. The problem is that this movie has no tension most of the time. It exists in its world but it takes forever to get to anywhere. If the movie wants to take the Frankenstein comparison to the fullest, it should have included a Dr Frankenstein in the movie. They could have added news footage of the war and Franco. Or maybe have a big commander as the doctor.

I appreciate a good foreign film as well as the next critic, but aside from the great acting performances by the two sisters, and the lovely cinematography, there is little here to maintain one's interest. I kept waiting for something to happen, other than the director's symbolism, and alas, nothing did. I'm sure there are messages here and there that I apparently missed, but I sure as hell cannot fathom where they might be.

I even speak Spanish, and it didn't help in trying to "get" this film. I was duped by the 7.8 rating on this site, and the push in the paper to be "sure to watch this film".

I can't honestly advise anyone to waste the hour or so it takes to watch this film, so I won't.

This is an enchanting movie about two young sisters caught in the silence of post-war Spain. While representing the isolation of Spain in that era and the lack of communication that persisted throughout the country, "El espíritu de la colmena," by Victor Erice in 1973, fascinated me with its use of dramatic chiaroscuro lightening, large panoramic shots and the use of fades to connect scenes while commenting on the time warp that Spain endured after the war.

Without using much dialogue in the movie, Erice artistically comments on the political tension in Spain through potent images and scenes. He uses symbols such as the two young sisters to represent the division between the Republican and Nationalist parties, and the leitmotif of the beehive to represent the "trapped" workers in Spain under Franco. The most amazing aspect is that all of the post-war commentary is said without any words and without mentioning the actual event! It is a "cine de espectáculo," or spectacle cinema, that symbolizes the connection between fantasy in the movies and fantasy in reality. Without knowing the history of Spain, a spectator could misinterpret the movie as a commentary about the imagination of a little girl after viewing the movie "Frankenstein." The character of Frankenstein is a main component contributing to Ana's, the younger sister, interpretation of reality in Spain, and it gains meaning as Frankenstein evolves from a character in the movie to an object of fantasy. It continues to evolve into a man of flesh and bones and finally represents the hope of Ana when all other sources of information in her life turn out to be faulty.

"El espíritu de la colmena" is a powerful movie that uses many metaphors (such as Ana for the young, innocent generation of Spain) to question the interpretation of reality. It is a powerful, artistically made movie that captivates the viewer through images rather than words. It should be seen more than once in order to understand all it's hidden messages.

A simple, moving tale of a young girl growing up in a well-off rural family who is made aware of terror and mortality. The picture of childhood presented here is one of innocence and pleasure, but also of being forced to confront, and actively seeking out contact with, life's darkest mysteries. Ana and her sister Isabel live in a peaceful, attractive place but difficulties exist in disguise, in secret, and in jest all around. They watch Frankenstein, in which the monster kills a little girl and have deep conversations about it. Deadly mushrooms are shown to them by their father. They frequent an abandoned house with a deep, dark well next to it. They play games by the train tracks where huge locomotives rumble past. And Ana comes across an escaped prisoner (or revolutionary) and helps him. The classic status of this film is well deserved.

There is beauty in the simplicity of this film. It's quiet, but it is also extremely passionate about trying to find understanding in the life we've been given. It's a love letter to those that make up stories to better understand reality and innocence lost and childhood in general. I would absolutely recommend this film, but be prepared for minimalist dialogue, long takes, and subtle hints that move the characters forward. This is a film that deserves to be seen, but only if you've got the patience to wade through it.

The Spirit of the Beehive is set in 1940, right after the civil war of Spain. It is a beautifully story seen trough a young girl's eyes. The main character of the movie is Ana, who lives with her father who spends most of his time writing about his beehives and her mother who is writing love letters to a distant lover and Ana's older sister Isabel, all of them living in their own isolated world. One evening, Ana and Isabel goes to the movie theater to see the Frankenstein. While most of the children are terrified by the story, Ana finds it fascinating and is excited by the darker sides of life. At home the same night, Ana asks her sister Isabel why Frankenstein killed the girl. Isabel answers that he didn't really kill her and that everything in the movies is fake. Frankenstein is like a spirit and if she closes her eyes and calls him, he might show up. This has a profound impact on Ana and the story of Frankenstein also come to function as the movies' nave. Isabel takes her to an abandoned building where she says that Frankenstein lives. Day after day, she comes back alone in hope to see him. One day, a soldier escapes from a train and finds the building. Ana finds him and brings him food and warm clothes. Just a couple of days later, the soldier is found and killed. When Ana goes back to the building, she finds only the blood and understands that he has been killed. Here, Ana's world comes into its own and when Ana is wandering the woods at night an inner journey is taking place as well. That night, she doesn't return home. She meets Frankenstein when sitting by a river, just like the scene from the Frankenstein movie in the beginning. Even though the movie is set in the context of Franco's regime, this aspect seems isolated from the story, which is solely a reality told through a child's world, questioning what is right and what is wrong and maybe more important; what is reality. Visually it is beautiful. After returning home the night Ana was found in the woods, she is traumatized and doesn't speak about her experience. In the end, she goes to the window and again whispering to the spirit: "It's me Ana".

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.

Is Spirit of the Beehive one of the only times in cinema history where a work of art was directly influenced by a censors cut to another film?

For those who don't know, Whale's Frankenstein for many years (and certainly at the time this was set, 1940, hell I even suspect when they made Beehive in 1973) was missing those several seconds where Karloff's Monster chucks the young girl into the pond - in his undead bubble-headed brain, the Monster thinks he's following the little girl's lead as she throws little flowers into the water he will do the same. When he sees she is drowning, he freaks out and absconds, with her father carrying her body totally distraught that someone killed her. Without that scene in the movie, this little girl Ana (played by Ana Torent) is like everyone else in the world, having to fill in the gap that's left in those several seconds with ones own imagination.

Why wouldn't one think the Monster killed the little girl, or worse? If only Ana got to see it post restoration of the cut. Maybe she'd be better off... or not? It's not that this hangs over every single moment of the rest of Beehive, but it does make an impact on how she sees this moment and her faith in Frankenstein carries over into how she sees spirituality as a whole. Not to mention, more concretely, is that moment of solitude where Ana is by herself and sees that giant footprint in the earth by that little farmhouse and the field. Is it the Monster's footprint? Why not, if you have the mind and soul to believe in it? ::insert the I saw your footprints on the beach and etc etc faith::

I didn't write more about this until thinking a few days extra about it, which is the nice thing about a website like this where you can ruminate and your first thoughts aren't a final edit. What makes The Spirit of the Beehive a remarkable and absorbing film are qualities that would make it stand distinctly from other films today (even those by one of its greatest admirers, Guillermo del Toro, who called it practically "autobiography" on social media and in appreciations over the years, and it's influence on Devil's Backbone and Labyrinth can't not be seen). It's a film that has dialog and scenes where we hear voiceovers, like from Ana's parents as they write in journals, but it's very sparse by a certain point and the final half hour largely functions like a haunted silent-era film, albeit with sound effects of the wind and the lovely score very important points of the cinematic soundscape.

It's a film that has to tell its story this way in some part because the performer playing Ana (also her name, I suspect this was not totally coincidence) is a non professional actor and how she appears in scenes is kind of withdrawn and observant and quiet, and that also has to do with this character. Perhaps withdrawn is too strong of a phrase - introspective is a better word for it, someone who may be told before a movie like Frankenstein plays what it's supposed to represent in her corner of the world of Franco-era Spain, but there's something more monumental going on with a story where a being is brought back to life and (seemingly) inexplicably kills. Why should the Monster kill and destroy? Can't the Monster be kind or even just neutral, for someone else (ie a little girl) to connect with if he got a chance? Not when society gets a hold of him, no sir. Her identification, as I try best I can to read into it, with this film - despite being told it's "fake" - sticks so strongly that when another "outsider" of the soldier comes to that abandoned house and, after she sees him, gets shot for being a desserter late in the story, she just can't take it anymore and runs away.

Another part of why the film is shown like this is simply because it makes for a more interesting reading if, as I suspect, director Victor Erice wants us to try to meet it halfway and to leave things for us to figure out for ourselves. It could mean that the little girl becomes disillusioned with spirituality and faith. Maybe something breaks in her where she believes so strongly. Maybe her sister shouldn't play a prank on her and play dead and draw it out for so long, as she does about midway through. Or she simply can't take being part of this "beehive" of the world and how people are expected to be and behave and do this or that. It's ultimately more on a first viewing a profound film intellectually speaking, like the meat on what's on its mind is strong. Emotionally it was slightly more distant for me, though the music and power of the lighting in some scenes was moving, like seeing paintings of innocence and haunted malaise come to life.

The Spirit of the Beehive is a fascinating, gorgeously rendered tale of youth and belief and faith. Masterpiece? I leave for you to decide.

Shortly after the end of the Spanish Civil War, Ana (Ana Torrent) and her older sister Isabel (Isabel Tellería) watch 'Frankenstein' (1931) in the local village hall that has been transformed into an impromptu cinema. Ana is struck by the scene where Frankenstein's monster approaches a little girl near the shore of a lake and begins to play with her and her flowers. Later in bed, Teresa tells her the monster is really still alive: it inhabits a deserted house out in the fields in ghostly form. Ana is deeply affected by this idea, with eventually serious consequences. With 'The Spirit of the Beehive' director Víctor Erice created a beautiful film. His treatment of Ana (and her sister) is in no way patronizing, and the way the film shows how a small girl's imagination can take over her mind is absolutely convincing. Moreover, the acting is good: the children are doing just as well the adults. The one weak point is the pacing, which is inordinately slow. When watching the film, I was several times reminded of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' (1962) - another film where the imagination of a little girl plays an important role. However, Robert Mulligan, who directed that film, did a superb job creating suspense while at the same time treating childhood in a sensitive and respectful way. Seen from this perspective Víctor Erice succeeded only in part.

There are some nice scenes in this film of the two children and they do give pretty good performances. The locations are good to look at too. But I found this film incredibly slow and tedious. There is not much dialogue and I found it difficult to care very much about any of the characters. Hardly anything happens and that which does happens is far more interesting as it was done in "Whistle down the wind".

Although it is quite nice to look at I would not recommend that you watch this film. I don't really understand why it has such a high rating and is regarded as a work of art. It is so slow moving. If this film was made now and set in whatever your country is I don't think there would be much point in watching it at all.

Obviously from the ratings most people seem to be completely at odds with my experience of watching this film but unless you like your films very slow paced and leaving you somewhat maudlin at the end I'd give it a miss.