The Spirit of the Beehive

El espíritu de la colmena

Víctor Erice’s remarkable feature debut, a brilliantly perceptive portrait of family life in rural Spain shortly after Franco’s victory in the Civil War.

  • Director

    Víctor Erice

  • With

    Fernando Fernán Gomez, Teresa Gimpera, Ana Torrent, Isabel Tellería

  • Spain 1973. 98min

  • Digital

  • Certificate

    PG

  • English subtitles

Erice’s remarkable first feature concerns a family living in a remote Castilian village shortly after the end of the Civil War, and centres on eight-year-old Ana, confused about the relationship of life and death after a screening of Frankenstein. A piercingly perceptive portrait of lonely lives haunted by grief, the film boasts images of both wondrously direct simplicity and enormous eloquence.