One Paragraph Movie Review: El Espiritu de la Colmena/The Spirit of the Beehive

One hundred and twenty-seventh film: El Espiritu de la Colmena, or The Spirit of the Beehive. You’re actually not allowed to include bees in your movie unless they’re deeply symbolic, and this Spanish movie is no exception. It’s about a beekeeper’s daughter who is deeply affected by seeing the movie Frankenstein, and… that’s it? Like the beekeeper who keeps falling asleep before he finishes writing a poem, the writers of this movie trailed off before giving many thousand dollops of presumed symbolism any clear meaning. We get it, the house itself with its hexagonal windows and multiple equal-sized rooms resembles a beehive, end of sentence. We get it, the little girl thinks a political fugitive is the spirit of Frankenstein’s monster, new paragraph, zero consequences. There are very few more visually beautiful films and I kind of want to live in a Spanish barn now, but most of this felt like teaching Zac Efron how to play Scrabble — nice-looking on the outside, but ultimately frustrating and empty. Fine, I guess. Two and a bit lethal mushrooms squashed underfoot out of five.