---
title: "The Spirit of the Beehive"
year: 1973
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive"
fi1m_score: 87
critics_score: 85
critics_reviews: 10
published: "2026-09-16T10:41:21.786550+00:00"
updated: "2026-09-16T10:41:37.847252+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

Directed by Víctor Erice · 1h 38m · Drama, Fantasy

**Fi1m score: 87** · Critics 85 from 10 reviews

*In a sentence:* A child tries to understand Frankenstein; the adults could do with a little explaining too

> Víctor Erice makes a child’s fascination with Frankenstein quietly unsettling, with Ana Torrent giving the film its emotional force. The beautiful images occasionally hold us at a distance, but this is patient, affecting work worth the attention it asks for.

## Synopsis

In a Castilian village in 1940, after the Spanish Civil War, Ana (Ana Torrent) and her sister Isabel (Isabel Tellería) explore questions about life and death. The Frankenstein monster occupies Ana’s imagination as she tries to make sense of what it means for something to be alive. Fernando (Fernando Fernán Gómez) and Teresa (Teresa Gimpera) belong to the adult world around them, marked by the aftermath of war. Bees work while the village remains largely inactive. The sisters experiment and imagine, but Ana has little to help her distinguish an explanation from something she wants to believe.

## Review

*The Spirit of the Beehive* takes a child’s questions about life and death seriously enough to let them be frightening. Víctor Erice sets Ana and Isabel’s explorations in a Castilian village in 1940, after the Spanish Civil War, where the adults seem poorly equipped to offer reassurance. It is a patient, affecting film, and we recommend it despite stretches that keep us at a distance. Erice expects us to spend time with people whose thoughts we cannot readily follow.

Ana Torrent makes that invitation easier to accept. Her Ana has the concentrated attention of a child who has not yet learnt which things adults consider worth noticing, and her fascination with the Frankenstein monster never feels like a cute eccentricity. We were unsettled by Torrent’s stillness, because Ana seems to be taking in more than she can make sense of. Torrent makes us want to understand what Ana is thinking without pretending that a child’s face can tell us everything.

Isabel Tellería’s Isabel matters because Ana is not left to represent childhood on her own. The sisters’ explorations feel tentative, and the film allows both girls a curiosity that need not lead to a useful lesson. Fernando Fernán Gómez and Teresa Gimpera are restrained presences as Fernando and Teresa, and that reserve makes the adults harder to approach. Erice does not make their distance from the children a reason to dismiss them.

Luis Cuadrado uses yellow filters and long, static shots to give the village a weary stillness. The colour warms the image without making the place welcoming, while Adolfo Cofiño’s production design keeps the surroundings from competing with the children. The bees’ industry makes the human inactivity more noticeable; there is something troubling about a village where the insects seem to have more to do. Occasionally, though, the compositions satisfy us too easily, and we catch ourselves appreciating the picture when we ought to be concerned about the person in it.

Pablo González del Amo’s editing gives those images time, generally resisting the urge to turn a child’s uncertainty into a brisk sequence of clues. That patience lets us watch Ana looking, without a cut continually telling us what to notice next. Luis de Pablo’s music makes the quiet less comfortable, and its unease works because it does not insist that we settle on one feeling. The image can remain still while the music encourages us to expect trouble.

The difficulty is that Erice sometimes asks us to accept mystery where we want a little more human detail. The adults can feel so remote that their unhappiness has to be taken on trust, and a prolonged look does not always bring us closer. Still, among fantasies about childhood, this one’s respect for a child’s serious curiosity is persuasive. The monster occupies Ana’s imagination because creation and death are difficult things to understand, and Erice refuses to hurry her towards the sort of answer that would merely let the adults change the subject.

At 98 minutes, the film still needs an unhurried evening. We would not advise trying to decode every image on a first viewing; Ana’s curiosity is enough to follow. The political unease is there in the village’s inactivity, without our having to assign a meaning to everything the children do. Watch when the silence will not have to compete with a conversation.

*Fi1m score 87, published 16 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

The reviews are uniformly positive, with praise clustering around Erice’s photography, his handling of childhood imagination and Ana Torrent’s performance. Most critics admire how the film conveys the unease of post-Civil War Spain through a child’s limited understanding, rather than direct explanation. Muted colours, still compositions and mysterious images receive particular attention. Torrent’s presence gives the film an emotional focus, while several reviews find its exploration of creation, death and illusion quietly moving.

The differences concern how readily that elusive approach draws viewers in, with enthusiasm ranging from warm approval to unreserved praise. Slant Magazine admires the visual atmosphere but finds that the film sometimes indulges in its own prettiness. Eye for Film praises the understated imagery and central performance while finding the allusive style difficult to engage with. These are reservations about beauty and accessibility within a positive consensus, rather than dissent over the film’s achievement.

### Reviews we read (10)

- **The AV Club**, Noel Murray (A): The film is praised for its dreamy imagery and subtle symbolism that lingers with viewers. Erice's meditation on what animates us becomes cumulatively moving as the sisters experiment and explore the mysteries of creation and death. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-spirit-of-the-beehive-1798201989)
- **Evening Standard**, Derek Malcom (90/100, inferred): Erice's first feature is a masterpiece and arguably the best Spanish film ever made, with gorgeous photography, haunting music and amazing performances by the child leads that create an unforgettable mood with political undertones. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/the-spirit-of-the-beehive-7381509.html)
- **RogerEbert.com**, Roger Ebert (90/100, inferred): The film is a masterpiece and one of the most beautiful ever made, a poetic work about children's imagination set against the backdrop of post-Civil War Spain. Ebert singles out the cinematography and the open, innocent performance of young Ana Torrent for particular praise. [Read](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-spirit-of-the-beehive-1973)
- **The Guardian**, Derek Malcolm (90/100, inferred): The film is one of the most beautiful and arresting ever made in Spain. It perfectly sums up childhood imaginings while also evoking the shadow of Franco's Spain through its muted colors and controlled direction. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/1999/sep/16/derekmalcolmscenturyoffilm)
- **Variety**, Variety Staff (90/100, inferred): This sensitive, beautifully wrought film about two girls in a Castilian village after the Spanish Civil War is authentically Spanish yet transcends borders with its suggestivity and lyricism. The review highlights superb acting, especially by Ana Torrent, and the touching simplicity of its scenes. [Read](https://variety.com/1972/film/reviews/el-espiritu-de-la-colmena-1200423041/)
- **Empire**, David Parkinson (85/100, inferred): Victor Erice's film is a masterly, elliptical discourse on juvenile psychology and an exploration of myth, misunderstanding and illusion. It features sublime photography with long static shots and yellow filters to evoke the gloom of post-Civil War Spain. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/spirit-beehive-review/)
- **Time Out**, TR (80/100, inferred): Erice's film portrays rural Spain after Franco's victory as a wasteland of inactivity contrasted with the bees' industriousness. It singles out the fragile spark of liberation in young Ana's mind as she dreams of the Frankenstein monster and befriends a fugitive soldier. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-spirit-of-the-beehive-1)
- **Slant Magazine**, Dan Callahan (75/100, inferred): Every image is filled with mysterious dread as the story unfolds from a child's point of view in post-Civil War Spain. The critic singles out the cinematography's voluptuous quality and Ana Torrent's unflappable presence while noting the film sometimes indulges in its own prettiness. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/spirit-of-the-beehive/)
- **The New York Times**, A. O. Scott (70/100, inferred): Erice's oblique, enigmatic film probes the buried traumas of Franco's Spain through the eyes of two young sisters in 1940. Scott praises its lucid yet mysterious images that balance adult longing with childlike innocence. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/27/movies/sorrowful-knowledge-and-startled-innocence-in-francos-spain.html)
- **Eye for Film**, Rebecca Naughten (4/5): The critic finds it an undoubted classic of the period with one of cinema's best child performances, but notes that its allusive and elusive style is difficult to engage with. It praises the film's quiet, understated visual poetry as a paean to the transformative power of cinema. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/the-spirit-of-the-beehive-1973-film-review-by-rebecca-naughten)

## Details

- **Director:** Víctor Erice
- **Director:** Víctor Erice
- **Screenplay:** Ángel Fernández Santos
- **Writer:** Víctor Erice
- **Cinematography:** Luis Cuadrado
- **Editor:** Pablo González del Amo
- **Music:** Luis de Pablo
- **Production design:** Adolfo Cofiño
- **Costume design:** Peris
- **Producer:** Elías Querejeta
- **Cast:** Ana Torrent as Ana; Fernando Fernán Gómez as Fernando; Teresa Gimpera as Teresa; Isabel Tellería as Isabel; Laly Soldevilla as Doña Lucía; Miguel Picazo as Médico; José Villasante as Frankenstein; Juan Margallo as Fugitivo
- **Runtime:** 1h 38m
- **Release (the US):** 8 October 1973
- **Genres:** Drama, Fantasy

## Where to watch in the US

Not streaming, renting or buying in the US at the last check.

Also available in: AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DK, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HU, IE, IL, LT, MX, NO, NZ, PA, PL, SE, TH, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Golden Shell 1973: Golden Shell (won)

## If you liked this

- *Cría cuervos* (1976): Another child’s view of troubled adults, with grief that refuses tidy explanations.
- *Pather Panchali* (1955), Fi1m 93: Childhood observation and family hardship, with room for pleasure as well as grief. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/pather-panchali.md)
- *The Night of the Hunter* (1955): Children face adult cruelty in images that make fear feel like a storybook. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-night-of-the-hunter.md)
- *Where Is the Friend's House?* (1987): A child’s practical mission receives the patient attention adults keep denying him.
- *Petite Maman* (2021): A child’s questions about her mother become a quietly affecting piece of fantasy.

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© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-spirit-of-the-beehive