I’ve seen Spirit of the Beehive several times, and frankly, I know it’s about something more than a family in a remote Spanish village in 1940, but what that more is I can’t exactly say. I’ve read the Wikipedia entry, I’ve watched the Criterion Collection extras and read the booklet. I know all about its veiled indictment of Generalissimo Francisco Franco, I get the Frankenstein reference. I know its history, and how the cinematographer was losing his sight during shooting, and I feel for Ana Torrent, the cherubic child actress who looks like she just walked out of a Margaret Keane painting; she never quite had the career she should have.
But what I don’t know about the film compels me to watch it over and over.
What it’s about is beside the point, that it makes you think, and gives you time to think, is the point. It is more poetry than narrative, its mysteries unfolding only after repeated viewings. Even then, its ambiguities remain and tantalize.
I have one shot in mind, but before I get to it, it must be put in context. Teresa, the matron of the house, writes a letter to an unknown person. We are privy to it in her voice over. Here’s what we know: the recipient has been silent, possibly missing, possibly dead. He may be off fighting fascism. They shared a life before Franco. The times they live in are hard and uncertain, and even in letters, one must be guarded. We may assume she’s writing a lover, but nothing in her voice over tells us it couldn’t also be to her father or brother. Teresa rides her bike to the train station and posts the letter. She makes eye contact with a young soldier on the train.
Now the one shot:
Teresa’s bedroom, early morning. Medium close up on Teresa lying in bed. Her husband Fernando enters the room and undresses. He is not seen, but his shadow moves in and out of the frame, across Teresa’s face and on the wall behind her. He does not speak, but his clothes rustle as he disrobes. Teresa, her back to him, closes her eyes--courting, or feigning, sleep. She adjusts her body slightly. She swallows. Birds chirps on the soundtrack, church bells ring. Finally, he enters the bed--he’s still unseen, we know he’s joined her because the room has become quiet. With the sound of an approaching train she opens her eyes. She stares blankly, listens, the sound of the train fades and her eyelids close slowly and tightly. Her head sinks a little deeper into the pillow. Fade out. End of Act I.
This is one static shot, held on one woman’s face, for more than two minutes. It’s a remarkable shot that doesn’t get its due. Film nerds go on and on about Welles’ tracking shot in Touch of Evil--and rightfully so, it is a brilliant piece of filmmaking, but pulling off this shot is in many ways much more difficult. There’s no hiding behind virtuoso camera moves here, there is only a face (and what a face!), gorgeous light, and a telling soundscape. I don’t recall seeing a more vivid expression of longing in a person’s face on the screen. But longing for what? For the lover (maybe) she wrote her letter to? To get away from a stultifying marriage? To get away from Franco’s Spain? For a sleep lasting years? In a film as richly symbolic and nuanced as this, the answer is all of the above. And probably some answers I haven’t thought of yet.
I can’t get enough of this film, especially when I’m feeling a bit out of sorts. It’s a meditative experience, an intellectual challenge, and a feast for the eyes. I feel like it will take a lifetime to unravel this movie, and that’s okay with me. You really can’t ask much more from a film than that, can you?
