The movie that\u2019s showing this time around is James Whale\u2019s 1931 classic Frankenstein<\/em>. \u201cI\u2019d advise you not to take it too seriously,\u201d says the emcee in the introduction, but that\u2019s exactly what six-year-old Ana in the audience will do. She is particularly disturbed by the scene when the monster encounters a young girl beside a lake. \u201cWhy did he kill her?\u201d she asks her older sister. \u201cAnd why did they kill him?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll tell you later,\u201d Isabel whispers back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It wouldn\u2019t be quite right to say that Beehive<\/em> is told from a child\u2019s perspective, since the audience is often included in private moments of the adults to which Ana and Isabel aren\u2019t privy. More accurate, perhaps, to say that director Victor Erice (in his debut, no less) has a remarkable grasp for the textures of childhood \u2013 its wonders, its mysteries, and also its cruelties, including those children inflict on one another. Isabel, for instance, will soon lie to Ana, telling her that Frankenstein\u2019s monster isn\u2019t dead. She\u2019s seen him near an abandoned house outside the village, but he\u2019s a spirit who only comes out at night. The repercussions of this fib will be felt through the entire family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Erice, working with cinematographer Luis Cuadrado (who was going blind at the time), composes his shots with an eerie expansiveness that emphasizes the smallness of individuals against the world; the landscapes seem on the verge of swallowing up its inhabitants rather than opening to them. Even the adults are adrift: Teresa, the girls\u2019 mother, is carrying on a clandestine affair with a soldier by post while father Fernando is consumed with the care of his bees. The discontent hangs over the household, never spoken of directly in dialogue but revealed in gesture and an uncanny use of space. When doors open, they only seem to lead to halls with more doors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The symbolism of Beehive<\/em> can often feel as opaque as its scenery. This was partly a tactic Erice employed to elude government censors, who reportedly allowed it to be released on the assumption that the public would reject \u201ca slow-paced, thinly-plotted, and \u2018arty\u2019 picture.\u201d Yet the film isn\u2019t inaccessible. The thing about monstrousness is that it’s both impossible to comprehend and ubiquitous, particularly when living under authoritarian rule, where every citizen has the potential to turn on another. This quandary takes corporeal form when an army deserter appears in the spirit\u2019s abandoned house one day. Ana gives him food and her father\u2019s clothes. This will lead to consequences that are fatal for one man and possibly dangerous to another. Ana, too, must confront her own capacity for harm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Though Beehive<\/em> would go on to inspire later filmmakers \u2013 most notably Guillermo del Toro \u2013 it was not an instant success. When it was awarded the top prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival, some audience members booed and stomped their feet in protest. Until its re-release in the U.S. in 2007, it was difficult to find, its masterpiece status more rumor than fact. Contemporary critics have called it \u201clucid and enigmatic<\/a>,\u201d \u201cvoluptuous<\/a>,\u201d and \u201carresting<\/a>,\u201d but such praise feels inadequate to the spell it casts while watching it. Like a fairy tale, the film transcends the simple language used to tell it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite the darkness that lies ahead for Ana and her family, The Spirit of the Beehive<\/em> ends on a hopeful note. \u201cBit by bit she\u2019ll begin to forget,\u201d the doctor says of her ordeal. It\u2019s perhaps the best a traumatized generation can hope for in the wake of unspeakable destruction. Healing is hard work, and it doesn\u2019t always look like we expect it to, particularly in the young. But Erice knew they would find a way. \u201cIt\u2019s me, Ana,\u201d the girl whispers to her spirit friend in the film\u2019s final moments, an innocent voice making itself heard in the night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “The Spirit of the Beehive” is streaming on the Criterion Channel<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/spirit2-1024x576.jpeg\")
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