Victor Erice’s spellbinding Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena) is one of the greatest films I have ever seen. The film is enigmatic, sublime, and mesmerizing but hard to understand on first viewing due to its sparse spoken words and heavy reliance on visual and aural imageries. But I am sure the patient viewer will enjoy this film immensely on subsequent viewings, when its symbolic meanings are revealed.
The film opens with a traveling movie show of Frankenstein. Anna, younger of the two sisters, becomes curious of the horrifying monster. Just like the little girl in the Frankenstein movie, Anna is not afraid of the monster. Instead, she questions her elder sister, Isabel, why the monster killed the girl, and why others had to kill the monster in turn. The remainder of the film is Anna’s quest for her own experience with such a monster.
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What the film is about?
Since the movie has so little spoken words, it is no surprise that the meaning of the movie can be found from the three extended spoken monologue:
The father wrote in his notebook: Someone to whom I recently showed my glass beehive, with its movement like the main gear wheel of a clock [hence the frequent display of the clock pendulum – are we human pre-programmed? Or do we have free will?], someone who saw the constant agitation of the honeycomb [note the honeycomb-colored and patterned glass window], the mysterious, maddened commotion of the nurse bees over the nests, the teeming bridges and stairways of wax, the invading spirals of the queen, the endless varied and repetitive labors of the swarm, the relentless yet ineffectual toil, the fevered comings and goings the call to sleep always ignored [camera showing Anna and Isabel sleeping], undermining the next day’s work, the repose to death far from a place that tolerates neither sickness nor tombs. Someone who observed these things, after the initial astonishment has passed, quickly looked away with an expression of indescribable sadness and horror.
A girl reads at school [we see Anna reading the same words silently to herself]: Now neither malice nor hatred, nor even fear of change, I only feel thirst, a thirst for I know not what. Rivers of live, where have you gone? Air, I need air! What do you see in the darkness that makes you silently tremble? [we see Anna near the end of the film trembling at the sight of the monster, before closing her eyes in total acceptance] I see not but only stare like a blind man facing straight into the sun [later we see Anna staring up into the sun, covered by clouds, then closes her eyes]. I shall fall where the fallen never rise. [Anna seems to be looking for something in the well at the abandoned farm house - is she expecting something / someone to rise from it?]
Isabel explains to Anna: Everything in the movie is fake… Besides, I’ve seen him alive. People can’t see him. He only comes out at night. He’s a spirit that doesn’t have body. You can’t kill him [hatred can never be exterminated completely – they always rise up again in a different form!]. Body you see is a disguise put on when they go outside. If you be his friend, you can talk to him anytime. Close your eyes and calling him “Its me, Anna!” [we hear floor creaking, as if the monster is appearing. Turns out it is the father upstairs. So is the father a monster too?]
I have compiled together imageries and patterns for you to come up with your own conclusions.
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Visual Imagery
Eye: Eye of the paper-mannequin; large dark pupils of Anna; two doors of abandoned farm house leading into total blackness. What is the soul that lies behind the eyes? A monster? A child’s innocence?
Bees and Beehive:
We see bees and beehive both outdoor and indoor; we also see beehive-patterned, honey-colored stained glass window: is then the house a beehive?
Worn and Barren Landscape: barren isolated landscape where the abandoned farm house locates; the beehive farm where the father works, alone; the family home that looks barren, worn and tired
Light vs Dark (and Gray):
Dark: Isabel is darkness (her choking of cat and smearing of blood on her lips); two dark doors of abandoned farm house; shadow puppets; shadow of moving branches that makes Isabel fearful; climatic Anna’s meeting with the monster occur in darkness; bad poisonous mushrooms; notice often the shots of the characters are in front of a dark background
Light: Anna is light (her acceptance of the monster and unfear of darkness); candle light; fire (warmth of fireplace; girls jumping over fire; later Anna tries to keep the dying fire alive by throwing in branches); good mushrooms; sometimes the visual open up – e.g. mushroom hunt in forest; shots showing setting sun afar
Gray / Moral Ambiguity: image of the sun screened behind clouds, while Anna gazes up and closes her eyes. Anna finds the ‘bad’ poisonous mushroom smells sweetly; the ambiguity of reality (of war and death) and dream (of monster and spirits)
Sleep
Recall the quote above “the fevered comings and goings the call to sleep always ignored”? Not surprisingly, sleep, or deprivation of sleep is a constant motif in the film. We see the father labors deep into the night; the mother faking sleep; Anna lies in bed turning away from Isabel; the sleeping freedom fighter; the father sleeping in this study near the end of the film - as if all the “fevered comings and goings” are finally dissolved.
Monsters
First Monster: Anna meets two ‘monsters’ before the climatic meeting with the ‘real one’ near the end. First is at school: the paper-mannequin monster is piece by piece put together by the students - first heart, then lung, stomach, and lastly, the eyes by Anna (I recall in Chinese New Year, Dragon Dance always starts with the symbolic ‘drawing of the eye’ onto the dragon to give it ‘life’).
Second Monster: Next encounter is with the freedom fighter in the abandoned farmhouse. Note that both scenes happen in day-time.
Third Monster: The climatic scene with the ‘real monster’ is at night. And who is this ‘real-monster’? It’s Anna herself (symbolized by how the reflection of Anna morphed into the monster; and her total submission to him despite trembling fear). Anna is the only character in the movie who has fully come to terms with the inner-monster in her. Perhaps suggesting that others are hypocritical and only seek and kill the monster in others, but never the one in himself.
Note that the scene where the villagers seek Anna is in direct parallel to the scene in the Frankenstein movie where the villagers seek the monster [but this scene is not shown in Spirit of the Beehive]. Are they symbolically searching not only for Anna, but also the monster in her? Notice also that the invocation of the monster is by calling “Its me, Anna!”. It is as if the monster itself is Anna!
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Aural Imagery
Dog Barking outside the beehive-patterned stained glass window – if the house is a protective beehive, what is the sound of dog barking outside a symbol of?
Train – isn’t it a reminder to the villagers of their connection to the horror of wars and death? It is the train that brings the second monster to Anna (the freedom fighter)
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Other Themes
Anna’s confusion of Dream vs Reality: Anna plays shaving; Isabel plays dead to scare Anna; Anna believes the monster is real; Anna’s meeting with the monster
Isolation
I don’t recall seeing the mother and father speaking directly to each other. There is a powerful scene where the mother fakes sleep when she hears the father is entering the bedroom. We see shadow and shuffling sound the father makes, but never sees father actually joining the mother’s bed.
As we get closer to the film’s end, we see Anna is getting more and more isolated from Isabel (Anna turns away from Isabel when sleeping - just like the mother turning away when hearing the father approaches; at the end Anna is so isolated that she stops responding to anyone, except her call for the monster)
Gesture of Hope and Love
Amidst the barrenness and loneliness, there are two scenes of intense sweetness: 1) when the father leaves the house and forgets his hat, the mother throws his hat from the balcony 2) when the mother burns the letter, realizing her dream is dashed, she finally reconciles with reality and has a gesture of love towards her husband
Fascination with Death
Anna stood transfixed at the train track upon approaching train - woke up from her revelry only by Isabel’s call of Anna’s name. Perhaps she feels that the train will bring her to her monster?
Isabel’s choking of cat and smearing / tasting of blood on her lips, while watching herself in a mirror
Father squashing a ‘bad’ poisonous mushroom
Yearning and Obsession
The film is also about human’s obsession with the unknown. Anna with the monster; Isabel with death; Mother with a unknown man; Father with mysteries of bees. Recall the quote a school girl reads during class: “I only feel thirst, a thirst for I know not what”
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Beauty of Scene Sequences
The movie is very sparse with spoken words, and yet its poetry and meaning comes from how the scenes are sequenced.
Example 1
(A) scene showing mother faking sleep, while we see shadows of her husband hovering the bed making shuffling sounds [feeling of alienation] —sudden shifts to–> (B) lively music showing children going to class, while at the end of this scene we see Anna placing the eye onto the paper-mannequin (symbolic of the monster given life) —logically leading to–> (C) the abandoned farm house in open field where Anna will meet the next monster - freedom fighter
Example 2
(A) Anna looked up into the sun –leading to–> (B) Anna sleeping, turned away from Isabel –leading to–> (C) freedom fighter sleeping in same position as Anna
[symbolic of Anna’s alienation from her sister, and her gradual move towards the monster]
Example 3
And look at how the scene where Isabel fakes death is built up to:
(A) when Anna was flipping the photo album, she saw the words “misanthrope”, accompanied by sound of an out of tune piano –> (B) Anna blowing into bees, and we see some bees dropping (Anna fascination with death?) –> (C) Isabel chokes the cat, smear blood on her lips and licking the blood –> (D) Isabel plays dead to scare Anna
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Will Anna Forget?
At the end of the movie, the doctor explains to the mother: “She [Anna] is under the effect of a powerful experience, but bit by bit she will learn to forget” – the doctor perhaps means ‘powerful experience’ as having eaten a poisonous mushroom; but we all know it is more than that. Will Anna ever forget her monster? Perhaps no, as we see her invocation of the monster at the end of the film. Why does she turn back and look inside the house? Tell me what you think in let’s talk!
