What do the setting and the mise-en-scène in El espíritu de la colmena/The Spirit of the Beehive (V. Erice, 1973) tell us about the political situation in the epoch in which the film was made?
Since early nineteenth century, studies on culture have been ambiguous across Europe. The notion of culture has relied a lot on world history and politics. Spain, because of Francoism, is a perfect example on how the development of its culture has been influenced by government power, being placed on a scale between reality and fiction. Spanish dictatorship kept the country closed up for many years because of censorship, that puts a stop to free expression of intellectuals such as filmmakers. The film El espíritu de la colmena, directed by Víctor Aras Erice with the collaboration of the producer Elías Querejera, is a remarkable portrait of that epoch of Spain: Franco after the Civil War, and the effects it had amongst the people of the country.
The film takes us back to the year 1940, the year right after the Spanish civil war. The director shows in a subtle artistic way his perspective of Spanish society during Franco’s dictatorship. The film was produced in 1973, when Franco was an old and weak man, about to hand over the government power to his allied, Almirante Carrero Blanco. Blanco was killed that same year by the ETA, which shocked the entire nation’s population. Political tensions were emerging around Spain, as well as the economy was on its lowest rates. Spain was definitely going through deep changes, while the people were starting to face the reality of their country. The film is built up in this context, Erice through the eyes of a child, Ana, played by Ana Torrent, shows what went on during the post-civil war years. The fact the film is introduced like a fairy tale, Erase una vez/ Once upon a time, and despite it can be seen as a way to mislead censorship, it invokes the idea of a story that should not be forgotten.
Slightly reporting back to a couple of the scenes from El espíritu de la colmena, we are likely to find symbolic features that characterize the post-civil war years in Spain. Such as the first scene of the mother, Teresa, who while the pueblo is enjoying the new and well announced film on screen in the village, she is writing a letter apparently addressed to a special loved man, which can lead us into doubt because during the whole of the film, the director tells us very little about the characters. What is interesting to point out is that she addresses this man in an uncomfortable nostalgic way, making us think that he had something to do with government matters, therefore, his distance is most probably due to the fact he went into exile to escape political imprisonment or even someone already held a prisoner in one of Franco’s concentration camps. She remits to the years of the civil war, talking about a great loss and about a morbid dark atmosphere spread around the country. Spain was going through years of economic repression and social exclusion, where the Regime ideology was to promote mass unification through issues on cultural nationalism. The idea of homogeneity was being encouraged in a country truly recognized by its rich cultural diversity. During this scene of the mother, we see the way she expresses herself while writing this letter. She has a melancholic attitude showing us her preoccupation on what was going on around at the moment, just as how the lack of information about what will happen provokes the sense of a quite fear. The authority had brought censorship to the country, enforcing silence in all communities using manipulative techniques. Another scene that tells us much about the people’s situation during these harsh years of indelicate violence is the first shot of the train, when the mother takes her letter to the mailbox. It is in my opinion, one of the most poetic moments of the film. The smoky environment of the railroad station, when the train stops, and the way Teresa stands watching the train leave, brings to our thoughts to true context during that epoch. As the train goes by, we see through Teresa’s eyes, the people who are travelling: these are Spanish representations of its natives. A better observation of this scene, can make us have a feeling, by the look of such representations that desperate, hopeless, restless, and tired emotions were being felt around the reality of Francoism.
Víctor Erice proves that he is part of a new generation in filmmaking, inspired by neo-realism, and the nouvelle vague movements to represent the authenticity of Spanishness through a firmly national cinema. This seems to be a possible explanation for the long-takes, and the fact that the majority of the scenes we encounter in the film are shot outdoors, just as the use of non-actors to play the narrative. It’s not accurate to consider that its not on purpose the director uses the real names of his characters. Moreover, the silent scenes, the sense of lost dialogues, in the same way, the faded and shadowed colours we see according to the set of lights used in all the mise-en-scene, clearly are metaphors of what was like living in Spain during the post-civil war years. Erice follows the politique des auteurs tradition, as a consequence of his studies at the Escuela Oficial de Cine, under the ideals of José María Garcia Escudero, who before had claimed that a new image of Spain should be produced in order to proceed with the country’s internationalization. It is notorious the urge to escape from the folkloric images of Spain transfigured in films like Berlanga’s Bienvenido, Mr. Marshall, in the same way, the urgent anxiety to construct a brighter perspective of Spanish identity. El espíritu de la colmena, which insights the representation of the nation to the nation, as its director once said, can well be identified with this new idea of Spanishness, when a closer look at its mise-en-scene is considered. The cinematographic technique used by the director proves to us that things are changing in respect of the construction of national identity.
Bibliography:
Graham, H. and Labanyi, J. (eds.) Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jordan, B. (2002) Spanish Culture and Society: The Essential Glossary, London: Arnold Press.
Kinder, M. (1993) Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of National Identity in Spain, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Ros, X de, (1999) “Innocence Lost: Sounds and Silence in El espíritu de la colmena’ Bulletin of Spanish Studies, 76, 1
Triana Toribio, N. (2003) Spanish National Cinema, London: Routledge.
