This morning I finished watching the Spanish movie, The Spirit of the Beehive.
Made in 1973 and directed by Victor Erice, the film is set in 1940 in a small Spanish village. It tells of a girl Ana, and her sister, Isabel. The two girls go to a mobile cinema which plays Frankenstein. Ana for the rest of the film is fascinated with the creature in the film. When she meets an escaped Republican solider, Franco has just won the Spanish civil war, who is shot by the police.
She also lives with her older father who tends bees, thus the name of the movie, and her younger mother, who writes letters to a former lover.
This is one of those films that I know has lots of levels that I just completely miss, after all it had a 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating and according to the write-ups of it, is considered one of the truly great Spanish films. After the film finished, I thought back to when in college I saw Fellini’s Satyricon, where I understood little of the implications, assuming there were implications, but found some of the scenes interesting; here too, I found the film entertaining and beautifully done, but suspect I missed the point, assuming there was a point.
The two sisters, especially the younger Ana, were remarkable. The actress Ana, played by Ana Torrent, has gone on to a lengthy film and acting career; the younger sister Isabel, played by Isabel Telleria, seems to have been only in this one film.