The Spirit of the Beehive - 1973

 I saw this on a list of underrated 70s art films, so last night I threw it on with no info on it.

The Spirit of the Beehive begins with sort of vague meandering slice of life style flavors in the middle of nowhere, Spain.  Young Ana and her sister are running around having a carefree life while other things are happening in this broken, isolated town in which they live.  It shows something that when the movie Frankenstein comes to town, virtually everyone shows up, and watch the movie.  Ana seems specifically affected by the scene where Frankenstein kills a young girl in the original 30's film, and we go from there.

 There's multiple ways of looking at movies, and this is very much the type of movie that points out that one must look in multiple ways.  There is "what is the movie about" and then there is "what happens in the movie".  What happens in this movie is that Ana is told Frankenstein is real, that he lives in an abandoned stone hut nearby, and that Ana goes there looking for him.  She secludes herself more and more, eventually meeting some sort of criminal in the hut and befriending him.  She self isolates more and runs away, and is found and has some sort of newfound distance from her family and social situation.

That is only part of the story, because "what this is about", well that's the real story.  And honestly, I don't know, which is why its effecting, underrated, and has stood the test of time.  Our minds and how they work, how we are different from our siblings and parents and societies for no explicable reason.  Childhood, fantasy, obsession, and choice.  Chance, luck, circumstance.  Emotions, otherness, maturity, helplessness, fear and anxiety...  Its just a thoroughly emotional movie without barely a single sign of outward emotion.

Nearly censored but deemed to be too boring and let slip through the cracks, the movie is also about Spain as a crucial moment politically, and since I know very little about that situation it goes over my head.  But there is true pain here, raw and unfocused, fearful and hopeful, pure and fractured.  Its certainly a vibe film, one you don't go to for a three act structure.

One of the more affecting but vague things I've seen, I'd joyfully mention this in the same conversation with Tarkovsky and some of Kurosawa.  Its a masterpiece.  5 stars.