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The Spirit of the Beehive

Original title: El espíritu de la colmena · Turkish title: Arı Kovanının Ruhu
1973 · 1 h 38 min
Directed by Víctor Erice

Cast

Ana Torrent Isabel Tellería Fernando Fernán Gómez

Credits

Written by: Ángel Fernández-Santos de Blázquez

Plot

In 1940, in a village on the Castilian plateau, the six-year-old Ana sees the film "Frankenstein" at a travelling cinema and asks her older sister about the monster. Convinced that the creature is a spirit living nearby, she goes out to look for it, and finds a wounded fugitive soldier. Víctor Erice's 1973 film, made under Franco's censorship, is a subtle allegory of silence and fear.

Sinekatalog’s take

Víctor Erice's quiet, poetic film follows a little girl obsessed with Frankenstein in Franco-era Spain. Ana Torrent's wide eyes carry a haunting, ambiguous story of childhood and silence.Sinekatalog’s own editorial review – not a user or critic quote.

Ratings

IMDb: 7.7 / 10 (23,086 votes)
IMDb rating and vote count from the IMDb ratings dataset (October 2026). Scores change over time.

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