Hive spirit

The main character is a six-year-old Ana, a timid girl living in a small Spanish village. Set in 1940, Franco recently defeated the Republicans in the Civil War. Ana's father spends most of the time caring for the bees, her mother is in correspondence with one of the Republicans - a former lover. Ana's closest friend is her sister Isabelle.

At the beginning of the film, girls attend a mobile cinema and watch the film Frankenstein , which makes a huge impression on Anu. She begins to transfer her impressions into real life, believing that if you close your eyes and call a monster, then he will come.

Soon, Ana finds a fugitive soldier who fought for the Republicans and is now seeking refuge. The girl decides that this is the same monster that she called. She brings the soldier food, a father’s watch, and a coat. This strange friendship does not last long. The Spanish police find the fugitive and shoot him. Soon the police hands over the coat and watch to the head of the family. To find out who knew about the fugitive soldier and helped him, he takes out his own watch at breakfast, sees the reaction of only one of his daughters, Ana. Ana returns to the Republican hiding place and sees traces of blood. Seeing that her father was watching her, she runs away. She is hiding in the forest. At night, the girl visits a vision of a monster, he looks at her sadly and, as in the 1931 film, kneels beside her.

The parents find Ana safe and sound the next morning, but she refuses to talk to them. The doctor who examined the girl assures that the consequences of the shock will gradually pass. At the end of the film, the main character stands at the window of her bedroom and again silently calls out to the monster.

• Fernando Fernand Gomez - Fernando
• Teresa Himper - Teresa
• Ana Torrent - Ana
• Isabelle Telluria - Isabelle
• Ketty de la Camara - Milagros
• Estanis Gonzalez - Soldier
• Lali Soldeville - Doña Lucia, teacher

• 1973 - San Sebastian Film Festival
  • The Golden Shell - Victor Eris

The names of the main characters of the plot coincide with the real names of the actors. And this is no coincidence. All this is due to a sincere misunderstanding by children of the difference between fiction and reality. The director commented: “Ana, the main 6-year-old heroine of the film, did not understand why people first have one name, which in an instant they could change to another.” Victor Erice decided to listen to the arguments of the little girl, changing the names of the main characters in the script to real ones.

“The name, in fact, does not belong to me. It is borrowed from one book, in my opinion the most beautiful one that has ever been written about the life of bees. The author of this book is the great poet and playwright - Maurice Meterlink . In this book, Materlink uses the expression “The Spirit of the Hive” to describe this omnipotent mysterious and paradoxical spirit, which the bees seem to obey and which is not subject to human understanding, ”commented Victor Eris.

• " The Hive Spirit ” on the Internet Movie Database
• The hive spirit on allmovie  
• The Hive Spirit on Rotten Tomatoes