Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

James Hitchcock In 1940, the year in which this film is set, Spain, which had so recently been torn apart by a bloody civil war, had paradoxically become an island of peace in a Europe being torn apart by an even bloodier international war, but that Spanish peace was an uneasy one, maintained by Franco's repressive, authoritarian dictatorship. In 1973, the year in which this film was made, Spain remained a dictatorship. Franco's decision to remain aloof from the struggle being waged by his fellow-fascists Hitler and Mussolini had paid off, enabling his regime to remain in power for three decades after theirs had crumbled. The Spain of the early seventies, however, was in some respects less repressive than the Spain of the early forties, and Spanish film-makers, and other creative artists, were able to address the past in ways which would not previously have been available to them. The action takes place in a Spanish village on the Castilian plateau. The main character is Ana, the six-year-old daughter of a wealthy family. The village is an isolated one, so isolated that it does not even have its own post office; anyone wishing to post a letter has to do so on special trains when they pull into the local station. Nor does it have its own cinema, so when a travelling showman arrives to show a film (James Whale's "Frankenstein") in the village hall this is a major event. Ana is haunted by the film, particularly by images of Frankenstein's monster; when she discovers a soldier (either a deserter from Franco's army or a survivor of the defeated Republican one) hiding in a barn he becomes confused with the monster in her mind. The film's title "El Espíritu de la Colmena" ("The Spirit of the Beehive") is a somewhat enigmatic one. Víctor Erice, who wrote and directed the film, borrowed it from the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck, who used it to describe "the powerful, enigmatic and paradoxical force that the bees seem to obey, and that the reason of man has never come to understand". In the film it seems to have a double significance; the "Beehive" part refers to the fact that Ana's father Fernando is a beekeeper and the "Spirit" part to legends of ghosts and spirits which are said to haunt the area and about which Ana's older sister Isabel teases her. The film acts as a depiction of Ana's inner life, and in her imagination the hunted soldier is conflated not only with the monster but also with these spirits, with a picture of St Jerome hanging in the family home and even with "Don Jose", an anatomical model used by the local schoolteacher to teach her class about the human body. There is a fine performance from the young Ana Torrent as Ana and an equally good one from Isabel Tellería as Isabel. The symbolism of the film has been interpreted in a number of ways as referring to the Spanish Civil War and to Franco's regime, although there is insufficient space in this review to discuss all these interpretations, none of which can be considered definitive. If, however, it was Erice's intention to use his film to comment obliquely on Francoism, he got away with it. The regime's censors had no problem with it being shown in Spain, even though his treatment of the theme of the fugitive soldier is surprisingly sympathetic to the man's plight. At one time no film treating such a theme in such a way could have been shown in Spain. The film itself contains an example of Francoist censorship of the cinema; "Frankenstein" is allowed to be shown, but only when preceded by a prologue making it clear that it is an allegorical condemnation of revolution and godlessness. (It must be said that Franco was far from being the first person to place such an interpretation on Mary Shelley's fable). Erice has been described as the Spanish Terrence Malick. His output has been even more limited than Malick's; this was the first of only three films he has made. The visual look of this film has much in common with Malick's masterpiece "Days of Heaven"; both films are set in a largely flat, featureless landscape and use a restrained, sombre palette of colours. Despite the British stereotype of "sunny Spain", the Spain we see here is often a gloomy place with overcast skies. Another feature of Erice's style is his use of symmetry; many of his shots are composed in such as way with the left-hand and right-hand sides of the screen balancing one another and with some prominent person or object in the centre. Erice is able to use this technique to give prominence to a number of objects which thereby take on symbolic significance- the railway lines, an old well and, most importantly, the barn in which the soldier is hiding. One criticism which some might make of the film is that it is too slow, but others might feel, as I do, that this is not necessarily a fault, merely part of a style of film-making which, in its pacing, emphases and visual style is very different from the standard Hollywood film (or, for that matter, the standard British film) of the early seventies. "El Espíritu de la Colmena" can be seen as marking the arrival of a fresh and independent Spanish school of film-making, just as Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock" from two years later marked the birth of a New Wave in the Australian cinema. 8/10

westley34 This movie was incredibly slow and drawn out. The director would shoot one scene for 20 straight seconds and nothing would happen. The people in this movie don't like to say much either. Calling it as it is here. Immensely over rated. Why does IMDb want me to stretch this out to make my review longer? I have said all that needs to be said.

Lambysalamby As you can see on IMDb there is a lot of praise for this film. It is my understanding that it was voted within the third greatest Spanish films ever made. It's good but I wouldn't go that far..Many people here have mentioned the historical metaphors within the film but I won't delve into that, I thought the story was completely about the main character Ana. First off, the actress who played Ana was very authentic, with a striking face full of emotion. She genuinely believed a lot of what was happening in the film including the Frankenstein monster being real! Such authenticity means it's worth seeing it for that alone and that is where the films true beauty lies...For all this though, for what is essentially a beautifully shot film with great cinematography and performances, the film was a bit dull! It was only after the first 45 minutes or so that I started to wake up. There was a whole sub-plot between the parents marriage which I felt added little weight to the rest of the story.. There just wasn't a whole lot I felt I hadn't seen before.So for me, I can see the film for what it was worth and why it received such accolades. But it was a little too dull for me to consider it "Great"I recall one of my absolute favourite films ever The Fall, which also included a little girl who believed so much of the movie around her, that film was gripping from start to finish and never dull for a moment. Strange it hasn't gotten the praise it so deserved..

lasttimeisaw The melodious flute score is an overture to this phenomenally shot film (much owes to the cinematographer Luis Cuadrado, who went blind during the shooting and would committed suicide in 1980) with profound imagery of Spain under the circumstances of Francisco Franco's ebbing ruling regime. Running against a succinct 95 minutes, the film introduces us a rural village in 1940s, after watching the horror-classic FRANKENSTEIN (1931), a seven-year-old girl Ana inexplicably gets possessed with the spirit of the monster in the film, slowly, her elder sister Isabel, and their parents, all realize their live will eternally changed by the unstoppable pace which their country is also experiencing. The diegetic curve doesn't limn an overbearing quantity of hubbub to foreground the family- related crisis, instead, it quietly and singularly takes its time to observe every tiny fluctuation of its executors' mind of state, subtle and poetic, under the background of oil-painting-alike texture and sometimes tender amber aura, the magical influence of the film's idyllic melancholia and psychological allusions can take your breath away if you can immerse yourself into the mise en scène.Ana Torrent (3 years before her another gripping child performance RAISE RAVENS 1976, 9/10) is the attention-grabber among the cast, such a consuming delivery of a girl's convoluted mind orbit around her daily encounters under the minimal and drab milieu, also emotionally tangible is the sibling relationship between her and Isabel, more obliquely but equally palpable hinted is the insular stalemate of the communication with and between their parents, the whole state of the family sets off a torpor which is both depressing and unbearable. Ana is looking for her own monster to whom she can relate her feelings, what would be more thrilling and ironical than befriending some creature with a kind heart under the protection of a spine-chilling outfit, no matter it is a ghost or a spirit, the wounded fugitive is her salvation, but is suffocated by the cruel reality, and also creates a crevice between her and her father, the delusional imagination triggered by the poisonous mushroom is the last resort and we never know if there is a cure for her. Victor Erice's own career path is quite tortuous, over 40 years or so, the fact that only 3 feature films are made is a crystal clear testimony of an auteur's abiding friction with the investors, comfortingly at least this film doesn't fail him and will always be an incentive for aficionados to be indebted for his prowess and acknowledge his uncredited endeavor.