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Notes from Underground

  And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment.  Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
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Hope

To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.-- Erich Fromm


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The Spirit Of The Beehive (El Espíritu De La Colmena 1976)




The Architecture of Silence

Set in the bleak aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Erice’s film uses a child’s fascination with Frankenstein to construct a poetic allegory of national trauma and political paralysis. 

 

Victor Erice’s “The Spirit of the Beehive” (1973), believed by many to be the greatest of all Spanish films

In 1972, when Director Víctor Erice made El Espíritu De La Colmena (The Spirit Of The Beehive), Spain was still ruled by General Franco and he film was nearly banned because it broke a long-standing taboo in its depiction  of a sympathetic Republican fighter. Only success at overseas festivals — and the philistine censors’ assumption that few people would bother to see such a slow-paced, thinly-plotted and ‘arty’ picture — allowed it to get a release in Spain. An international arthouse hit in the 1970s, The Spirit Of The Beehive is one of those films (Werner Herzog’s Aguirre: The Wrath Of God is another) that has stuck in the minds of everyone who saw it.

An opening scene establishes the location as “a village on the Castilian plain”  and the year as “about 1940”. A travelling showman arrives and projects a film, James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein (dubbed into Spanish), in the village hall, in front of a rapt audience which includes six year-old Ana (Ana Torrent) and her slightly older sister Isabel (Isabel Tellería).



In this vast Spanish plain, harvested of its crops, a farm home rests. Some distance away there is a squat building like a barn, apparently not used, its doors and windows missing. In the home lives a family of four: two little girls named Ana and Isabel, and their parents, Fernando and Teresa. He is a beekeeper, scholar and poet who spends much time in his book-lined study. She is a solitary woman who writes letters of longing and loss to men not identified. The parents have no conversations of any consequence.
Only a few years separate Ana and Isabel , but they form that important divide where Ana depends on her big sister to explain mysteries. The little girl runs carefree all over the farmlands, and in the barn she discovers the wounded soldier. That night, her eyes wide open in the dark, she asks Isabel to explain why the creature drowned the little girl. “Everything in the movies is fake,” she’s told. “It’s all a trick. Besides, I’ve seen him alive. He’s a spirit.” That of course serves for Ana as a possible explanation for the wounded man, and the next day, she sneaks him some food and water, and her father’s coat.

This is one of the most beautiful films I’ve seen. 
Its cinematographer, Luis Cuadrado, bathes his frame in sun and earth tones, and in the interiors of the family home, he creates vistas of empty rooms where footsteps echo. The house doesn’t seem much occupied by the family. The girls are often alone. The parents also, in separate rooms. Many of the father’s poems involve the mindless churning activity of his beehives, and the house’s yellow-tinted honeycomb windows make an unmistakable reference to beehives. Presumably this reflects on the Franco regime, but when critics grow specific in spelling out the parallels they see, I feel like I’m reading term papers.






The Spirit of The Beehive (1973) | Full HD Movie | English Subtitles | YOUTUBE >>>







Víctor Erice

Born June 30, 1940. A filmmaker who treats light as a painter and time as a philosopher. In half a century, he has released only a handful of features—each one a tectonic event in world cinema.



Víctor Erice is one of cinema's great mythic figures—a director whose legendary status is built not on a massive catalog of films, but on an uncompromising, deeply poetic approach to the medium. For decades, he was known for releasing exactly one masterwork per decade, followed by a thirty-year feature film silence that he finally broke in 2023 with Close Your Eyes (Cerrar los ojos).

His cinema is defined by patience, memory, the interior worlds of children, and a sublime mastery of natural light that makes every frame look like a living painting.

Core Thematic Hallmarks

  • The Shadow of History: Erice’s most famous early works are deeply tied to the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. Rather than focusing on direct political conflict, he captures the heavy, haunting psychological silence that the Francoist regime left in its wake.

  • Childhood and Illusion: He treats the gaze of a child not as naive, but as a serious, profoundly deep lens through which to process trauma, myth, and the mystery of existence.

  • Light as a Material: Erice frequently collaborates with legendary cinematographers (like Luis Cuadrado and José Luis Alcaine) to build a visual language centered around natural, minimalist illumination. His scenes often utilize the golden hour or soft, amber indoor lighting reminiscent of Vermeer paintings.

The Essential Filmography

1. The Spirit of the Beehive (El espíritu de la colmena) — 1973

Widely considered one of the greatest Spanish films ever made. Set in a remote Castilian village in 1940, just after the civil war, it follows a quiet six-year-old girl named Ana (played by the astonishing Ana Torrent). After seeing James Whale's 1931 Frankenstein mobile screening, she becomes obsessed with finding the monster, whom she believes is a wandering spirit hiding in the countryside. It is a stunning, allegorical look at a country frozen in isolation.

2. El Sur (The South) — 1983

Another exquisite exploration of childhood and paternal mystery. A young girl grows up fascinated by her enigmatic father, a man from the south of Spain who now lives in the chilly north and holds secrets about his past and a lost love. Though the film was famously halted by its producer before Erice could shoot the intended second half (set in the south itself), the remaining film is an absolute masterpiece of atmosphere and longing.

3. The Quince Tree Sun (El sol del membrillo) — 1992

A unique, mesmerizing blend of documentary and fiction. Erice tracks the painstaking creative process of Madrid realist painter Antonio López García as he attempts to capture the shifting autumn sunlight filtering through the leaves of a quince tree in his backyard. It is an extraordinary meditation on time, the fleeting nature of light, and the frustration of trying to capture reality on canvas or film.

4. Close Your Eyes (Cerrar los ojos) — 2023

Erice’s triumphant return to feature filmmaking after thirty-one years. The story follows an aging director who is pulled into a mystery surrounding the sudden disappearance of his lead actor mid-production decades prior. It serves as a deeply moving, melancholic farewell to the twentieth century, the act of remembering, and the unique magic of celluloid film projection.

"Cinema is a medium of presence, a way of looking at the world that requires us to stop and observe the passage of time." — Víctor Erice

Would you like to dive deeper into how The Spirit of the Beehive used allegory to bypass Francoist censorship, or explore his recent return with Close Your Eyes?




Historical Context and Allegory

The film is set in 1940, in a desolate Castilian village, just after the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War. Because it was produced during the final years of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, Erice utilized symbolism and allegory to bypass state censorship.

  • The Beehive: The central metaphor of the film. It represents the rigid, productive, but ultimately soul-crushing structure of the Francoist state—where every "citizen" has a place and a function, but individual spirit is suppressed.

  • The Father (Fernando): A man who spends his time obsessing over his bees and writing a book about the "spirit" of the hive. He represents the internal exile of the Spanish intellectuals who survived the war but remained spiritually broken and isolated.






The Power of the Gaze: Ana and Frankenstein

The narrative is driven by young Ana (played by the incredible Ana Torrent). After seeing a traveling projection of James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein, Ana becomes obsessed with the Monster.

  • The Monster as Outsider: To Ana, the Monster is not a creature of horror, but a "spirit" or a lonely entity much like herself.

  • Childhood Innocence: The film beautifully captures the "borderline" state of childhood, where the line between reality and myth is porous. When Ana discovers a wounded Republican soldier hiding in a barn, she treats him with the same reverence and mystery she affords the Monster.







Visual Language and Aesthetics

The cinematography by Luis Cuadrado is legendary for its use of "honey-toned" light.

  • The Color Palette: The interiors of the family home are bathed in amber and yellow hues, mimicking the inside of a beehive. The windows even feature hexagonal patterns.

  • The Landscape: The vast, empty plains of Castile emphasize the isolation of the characters. Each family member exists in their own private "cell," rarely communicating with one another in a meaningful way.






The Spirit of the Beehive is more than a coming-of-age story; it is a meditation on the ghosts of history. By focusing on the small, internal world of a child, Erice managed to speak volumes about the state of an entire nation. It remains an essential watch for anyone interested in the intersection of politics, art, and the human psyche.



To understand how Erice pulled off The Spirit of the Beehive in 1973, you have to look at the atmosphere of Spain at the time. Franco was still alive, and his regime’s censorship board was notoriously strict. Filmmakers couldn't explicitly criticize the regime, show the misery of post-war Spain, or portray the Republican (anti-Franco) side with sympathy.

Erice’s brilliant solution wasn't to fight the censors with direct politics, but to retreat into the world of myth, childhood perception, and heavy symbolism. The censors, looking for overt political slogans, missed the deeper, devastating critique woven into the fabric of the film.

Bypassing Censorship Through Allegory

1. The Beehive as the Totalitarian State

The central metaphor of the film is right in the title, inspired by a text by Maurice Maeterlinck. Ana’s father, Fernando, is a blocked intellectual who spends his days obsessively tending to his beehives.

In his notebooks, he describes the hive as a place of terrifying, mechanical efficiency where every insect performs its duty without a single moment of rest or individuality. To an audience living under the suffocating, hyper-regulated eye of Francoism, the parallel was crystal clear: Spain had become a joyless, locked-down beehive.

2. Frankenstein’s Monster and the "Enemy"

When a traveling cinema brings James Whale’s 1931 Frankenstein to the village, Ana is transfixed by the monster. Her older sister Isabel tells her a lie that sets the plot in motion: the monster isn't dead; he is a spirit who lives in the countryside outside the village.

Later, Ana discovers a real, wounded anti-Franco guerrilla fighter hiding in a deserted sheepfold. Instead of fearing him, she maps her fantasy onto him—she treats him as the gentle, misunderstood monster from the movie, bringing him food and her father’s warm coat. By connecting the regime's ultimate political enemy to a tragic, sympathetic cinematic figure, Erice completely reframes the civil war's aftermath. When the soldier is eventually shot and killed by the authorities, the loss is felt as a profound, heartbreaking tragedy.

3. The Amber Cinematic Cage

The visual language of the film carries an emotional weight that words couldn't safely say. Working with cinematographer Luis Cuadrado, Erice shot the interiors of the family's house using yellow and amber filters.

The windows of the home are patterned like honeycombs, casting hexagonal grids of light across the characters. The family rarely speaks to one another; they drift through the house like ghosts. Through light and architecture alone, Erice captured the profound psychological isolation, grief, and emotional paralysis of post-war Spain.

The Poetic Full Circle: Close Your Eyes (2023)

Fast forward fifty years to Close Your Eyes, and Erice stages what feels like a career-spanning conversation with The Spirit of the Beehive.

The meta-textual resonance is staggering. In Close Your Eyes, the aging director (Miguel) tracks down a character played by Ana Torrent—the exact same actress, now in her late 50s. In a breathtakingly meta touch, her character’s name in the new film is Ana Soriano, and at one point, she looks at the camera and repeats a variation of her most famous line from 1973: "Soy Ana" ("I am Ana").

While Beehive is about a child discovering the haunting power of moving images at the dawn of a dictatorship, Close Your Eyes is about an old man looking back at a lost world at the end of the celluloid era. It shifts the focus from the collective trauma of a nation to the personal trauma of aging, forgetting, and seeking redemption through the projection of light in a dark room



Close Your Eyes (2023)




The opening twenty minutes of “Close Your Eyes,” the third fiction feature from Spanish director Victor Erice, and his first film in thirty years (his documentary, “The Quince Tree Sun,” came out in 1993; the debut feature that made his reputation was 1973’s “The Spirit of the Beehive”), are as quietly spellbinding as anything you’ll see this year, or decade, or century.

The time is 1947, shortly after the Second World War, and the Spanish Civil War as well; the setting is an estate outside of Paris called Triste Del Rey—the sadness of the king—and the characters are an older man and a Spanish man in middle age. “Chess is a reflection of the world,” the older man says before he tells the younger of his plight, the disappearance of his now-teenage daughter, thought to now be in Shanghai. He refers to a movement made by this loved one as her “Shanghai gesture,” and real heads will know. This movie is threaded through with cinematic allusions. And this scenario isn’t even the actual movie—it’s two-thirds of the extant footage of a never-finished movie called “The Farewell Gaze.” Its lead actor, Julio Arenas (José Coronado, a relatively assured figure when we first see him), walked off the set one day after a cut was called, and was never seen again.

This, we learn, was in 1990; the movie cuts ahead to 2012, and its director Miguel Garay (Manolo Solo, whose deep-set eyes convey universes of worry and sadness) is approached by a Spanish television series called “Unresolved Cases”—yes, the “Unsolved Mysteries” thing is worldwide—to discuss the movie and his missing friend. He’s not sure about working with these people, but they seem to have integrity and they’re offering him some money, which he can use. The “Farewell Gaze” experience put him off directing—you can see why it might—and after writing a novel or two he’s barely scraping together a living as his dotage approaches. Researching on behalf of the program takes him into some storage facilities, and even another part of Spain altogether (the movie begins in Madrid). He consults his adult daughter (played by Ana Torrent, the little girl beguiled by the image of the Frankenstein monster in “Beehive”), an old girlfriend, and his former film editor. All through his journeys the movie retains a quiet tone, one that grows ever more contemplative as the story inches forward. This nearly three-hour film is likely to be checked off as “slow cinema” by some, and the descriptor is correct. But Erice’s deeply personal style isn’t tied to anything resembling a trend.




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