El Espíritu de la Colmena (1973)
Genre: Drama
Duration: 97 minuten
Alternative title: The Spirit of the Beehive
Country:
Spain
Directed by: Víctor Erice
Stars: Ana Torrent, Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera
IMDb score:
7,7 (22.504)
Releasedate: 8 October 1973
El Espíritu de la Colmena plot
In a Spanish village in 1940, a young girl sees James Whale's film Frankenstein (1931) in a traveling theater. She becomes so impressed by the monster that she is determined to look for him.
Actors and actresses
Fernando
Teresa
Ana
Isabel
Doña Lucía
Médico
Frankenstein
Fugitivo
Guardia civil
Milagros, la criada
Reviews & comments
Spetie
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- 38871 messages
- 8247 votes
A beautiful film this.
I must say that the meaning of everything is not quite clear to me yet, but reading some of the comments here fortunately helps a lot.
The film is bursting with beautiful symbolism and has many long moments without dialogue. In some movies, that equates to dullness, but in this movie it does. Almost every scene in the film is a picture in itself, most of which are actually really nice pictures. Visually, the film is fine.
The story itself is also quite original and Ana Torrent also knows how to convince as a leading lady. She has such a beautiful eye expression, something that reminded me at times of the leading lady in La Passion de Jean D'arc.
The moment that Ana actually sees Frankenstein's monster was really beautiful. Brilliant scene as far as I'm concerned and there are more. I wonder if I could get a little more meaning out of it with a revision. Some images also linger for a long time and that is always a positive sign with a film.
For now a big 4.0 *
Translated from Dutch · View original
Onderhond
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- 87623 messages
- 12889 votes
Bit lame.
I ran into a huge conflict myself in this film. On the one hand there are the indoor scenes, in which I certainly recognize a lot of the positive reviews. On the other hand, the outdoor scenes, which are completely at odds with that. The latter are unfortunately detrimental to a film that relies heavily on atmosphere creation.
Inside everything looks neat. Beautifully framed shots, lots of playing with light and an amber glow that is very dominant. I didn't think it looked outrageously beautiful, but it was neatly finished and it could count in terms of atmosphere. Plus, Torrent is doing very well for being so young.
Unfortunately, it stops there. The music is a first bummer. Rather strangely airy and little in keeping with the images, so that some beautiful scenes still lose their impact. Worse are the extremely sad outdoor shots, with their faded colors and gray setting that leave almost nothing intact of the mysterious. It's a 1970s movie, so it didn't surprise me at all, but I found it to be in sharp contrast to the rest.
So the film bumps along for about 100 minutes. Some nice moments here and there, but it doesn't really last long and the atmosphere is completely broken down several times without little gene or hesitation. At least it didn't give me the idea that Erice was fully aware of what he had in his hands.
2.0*
Translated from Dutch · View original
mrklm
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- 11629 messages
- 10041 votes
It is 1940 and Ana [Ana Torrent] is impressed by a screening of the horror film Frankenstein (1931) in which the scene with the girl with the flowers keeps haunting in her head. Ana's little sister Isabel [Isabel Telleria] knows how to answer Ana's questions about the movie and even suggests she's seen the monster recently! The curious Ana decides to look for the monster.
Victor Erice takes the time to tell the story in a nostalgic film about a time and a place where life seemed less likely to pass people by, but it is also a declaration of love to the innocence and power of the imagination that our childhood.. The two girls are disarming and it is striking that one of them (Torrent) would have a very successful acting career and that the other (Telleria) would never appear in a movie again. In any case, this is a beautiful meditation that makes you long for the time when you could completely immerse yourself in your dreams and fantasies without having to worry about the daily worries.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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