DVD Review

The Spirit of the Beehive (2006)

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Credits

Rated: Unrated; DVD Release Date: Sep 19, 2006; Genres: Drama, Foreign Language; With: Teresa Gimpera, Fernando Fernan Gomez and Ana Torrent

B+

By Edward Karam

In The Spirit of the Beehive, while papa (Fernando Fernán Gómez) tends to bees and mom writes to an old lover, daughters Isabel and Ana see a traveling movie of Frankenstein in their 1940 Spanish village. Isabel claims to have seen the monster alive, so Ana (a blazingly charismatic Ana Torrent) sets out to find it. Director Victor Erice's exquisite, serene visuals mask an enigmatic plot that touches on childhood innocence, fascism and the power of film to ignite the imagination. EXTRAS include probing (and occasionally pretentious) docs and frank interviews: Even now, says Gómez, he hasn't nailed the meaning of the film.

Posted Sep 11, 2006

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