Useful study of The Spirit of the Beehive

I found this (part 2 is here) on Youtube. It's by Linda C Ehrlich from the Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. She edited 'An Open Window: The Cinema of Victor Erice'. She talks alot about how the film relates to the Civil War, both in obvious ways and also how she interprets it.

• The village as a microcosm for Spain.
• The links between Ana's father, Franco and Frankenstein.
• How the film relates to other artistic forms, eg. Spanish Golden Age Theatre.
• An effort to understand the war through a child's eyes. Cinema as an escapist, all-absorbing tool.
• The role of Ana
• The Spirit - fantasy. The Beehive - concrete reality.

A useful site :)

Scope, part of The University of Nottingham's Film Studies department is quite a useful website with a collection of academic articles and reports. In fact, it's Nottingham's Film Journal. The department's homepage is here. Unfortunately, the website doesn't seem to have been updated in a while, so I am looking for a more recent version. So far, I have found these articles:

• This is about The Butterfly's Tongue, by Antonio Lázaro-Reboll... 'the use of both Galician and Spanish traditions in Cuerda's latest production poses a number of questions about cultural identity'... It explores the Republican importance of education (it was seen as the ideological arm of the new Republic... 'of the nearly 300 historical films produced in Spain since the 1970s, more than half are set during the Second Republic (1931-1936), the Civil War (1936-1939), and the dictatorship of Franco (1939-1975)'...it has a 'polarized, oversimplified vision' of the war... doesn't 'display the complexities of Cuerda's more masterful work'.
• This is a review of the 2000 Viva! Spanish film festival in Manchester, by Andrew Willis of the University of Salford... The film shows how 'Spain and, in particular, its impressionable young children, fell into the hands of the Franco regime because many were too afraid and too weak and selfish to speak out against it'.

Some random links...

A BFI article about the The Butterfly's Tongue - it criticises the realism of the film, particularly surrounding the region of Galicia, where the film it set. It also makes links to The Spirit of the Beehive and Spanish culture during the Civil War. It's actually quite scathing about the film, which surprised me a bit.

This is from the Socialist Review, so it gives a different angle on the cinema of the Spanish Civil War. It gives a good (although politically motivated) background to the war, as well as making brief mentions of The Butterfly's Tongue and Land And Freedom.

Critical reviews of each film

Pan's Labyrinth - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

The Butterfly's Tongue - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times (note: in America the film is called Butterfly)

The Spirit of the Beehive - A.O. Scott, New York Times (Ebert didn't review the film)

Pan's Labyrinth Notes from IMDB

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Writers: Guillermo del Toro

Music: Javier Navarette

Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro

Editing: Bernat Vilaplana

Production design: Eugenio Caballero

Ofelia Ivana Baquero

Vidal Sergi López

Mercedes Maribel Verdú

Fauno/Pale Man Doug Jones

Carmen Ariadna Gil

Doctor Álex Angulo

In 1944, in the post-Civil War in Spain, rebels still fight in the mountains against the fascist troops. The young and imaginative Ofelia travels with her pregnant and sick mother Carmen Vidal to the country to meet and live with her stepfather, the sadistic and cruel Captain Vidal, in an old mill. During the night, Ofelia meets a fairy and together they go to a pit in the center of a maze where they meet a faun that tells that she is a princess from a kingdom in the underground. He also tells that her father is waiting for her, but she needs to accomplish three gruesome, tough and dangerous assignments first. Meanwhile, she becomes friend of the servant Mercedes, who is the sister of one of the rebels and actually is giving support to the group. In a dark, harsh and violent world, Ofelia lives her magical world trying to survive her tasks and sees her father and king again.

The Spirit of the Beehive Notes on IMDB

Director: Victor Erice

Writers: Victor Erice (screenplay and story)

Ángel Fernández Santos (screenplay and story)

Francisco J. Querejeta

Music: Luis de Pablo

Cinematography: Luis Cuadrado

Editing: Pablo González del Amo

Art Direction: Jaime Chávarri

D. Fernando Fernando Fernán Gómez

Teresa Teresa Gimpera

Ana Ana Torrent

Isabel Isabel Tellería

Milagros Ketty de la Cámara

The Fugitive Juan Margallo

In the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, Ana, a sensitive seven-year-old girl in a rural Spanish hamlet is traumatized after a traveling projectionist screens a print of James Whale's 1931 "Frankenstein" for the village. The youngster is profoundly disturbed by the scenes in which the monster murders the little girl and is later killed himself by the villagers. She questions her sister about the profundities of life and death and believes her older sibling when she tells her that the monster is not dead, but exists as a spirit inhabiting a nearby barn. When a Loyalist soldier, a fugitive from Franco's victorious army, hides out in the barn, Ana crosses from reality into a fantasy world of her own.

The Butterfly's Tongue Notes from IMDB

Director: José Luis Cuerda

Writers: Rafael Azcona, José Luis Cuerda

Music: Alejandro Amenábar

Cinematography: Javier Salmones

Editing: Ignacio Cayetano Rodriguez

Nacho Ruiz Capillas

Production design: Josep Rosell

Don Gregorio Fernando Fernán Gómez

Moncho Manuel Lozano

Rosa (Moncho’s mum) Uxía Blanco

Ramón (Moncho’s dad) Gonzalo Uriarte

Andrés (Moncho’s brother) Alexis de los Santos

Roque (Moncho’s friend) Tamar Novas

O’Lis (couple) Guillermo Toledo

Carmina (couple) Elena Fernández

For Moncho, it's an idyllic year: he starts school, he has a wonderful teacher, he makes a friend in Roque, he begins to figure out some of the mysteries of Eros, and, with his older brother, a budding saxophone player, he makes a trip with the band from their town in Galicia. But it's also the year that the Spanish Republic comes under fire from Fascist rebels. Moncho's father is a Republican as is the aging teacher, Don Gregorio. As sides are drawn and power falls clearly to one side, the forces of fear, violence, and betrayal alter profoundly what should be the pleasure of coming of age.