The Spirit of the Beehive

Víctor Erice

Spain

1973

99 minutes

Color

1.66:1

Spanish

Watch Film for $5

351

Synopsis

Criterion is proud to present Víctor Erice’s spellbinding The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena), widely regarded as the greatest Spanish film of the 1970s. In a small Castilian village in 1940, in the wake of the country’s devastating civil war, six-year-old Ana attends a traveling movie show of Frankenstein and becomes possessed by the memory of it. Produced as Franco’s long regime was nearing its end, The Spirit of the Beehive is a bewitching portrait of a child’s haunted inner life and one of the most visually arresting movies ever made.

Cast

AnaAna Torrent
IsabelIsabel Tellería
FernandoFernando Fernán Gómez
TeresaTeresa Gimpera
MilagrosQueti de la Cámara

Credits

DirectorVíctor Erice
CinematographyLuís Cuadrado
EditingPablo G. del Amo
ScreenplayFernández-Santos and Víctor Erice
ProducerElías Querejeta

Disc Features

SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer
  • The Footprints of a Spirit, a documentary featuring director Víctor Erice, producer Elías Querejeta, coscreenwriter Ángel Fernández-Santos, and actor Ana Torrent
  • Víctor Erice in Madrid, an interview with the director
  • Interview with film scholar Linda Ehrlich
  • Interview with actor Fernando Fernán Gómez
  • New and improved English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: a new essay by film scholar Paul Julian Smith

From the Current

The Spirit of the Beehive: Spanish Lessons

by Paul Julian Smith Sep 19, 2006

Released in 1973, in the dying days of General Franco’s forty-year dictatorship, The Spirit of the Beehive soon established itself as the consummate masterpiece of Spanish cinema. Yet, strangely...

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50 Discs

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