‘Spirit of the Beehive’ offers a Halloween both spooky and lovely 
This Halloween, put the “Saw” back in the shed and send “The Children of the Corn” to their rooms. Take a break from the spewing of blood and the eating of brain. This Halloween, dress up your television screen in a film that is scary, but also beautiful. Weird, but also profound. A film that questions the nature of life and the presence of the undead. A film infused with the mystery of skeletal trees and cackling crows.

(Note: if you like to keep a little mystery in your movie, don’t read this review. Clip it out or put this issue of The Wire into the archives and come back to it later, after you’ve enjoyed your encounter with the film.)

“The Spirit of the Beehive” (Spain, 1973) is the story of a young girl whose life is turned upside down when she sees James Whale’s 1931 version of “Frankenstein.” Spurred on by her devious and slightly older sister, 8-year-old Ana comes to believe that the monster lives in her own small village, and she sets out on a lonely quest to find him. “If you call to him,” her sister tells her. “He will appear to you. If you’re his friend, you can talk to him whenever you want.”

To be sure, “The Spirit of the Beehive” has some creepy, horror movie imagery: the strangling of a cat, blood smeared across a child’s lips, a group of girls jumping through a bonfire at dusk, a search through the forest with hounds and torches. But there is something much deeper, and much more unnerving, going on here.

The film begins with a “Once upon a time…” and a credit sequence accompanied by children’s drawings. Like that of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” this sequence immediately sets the point of view. Ana’s rarely-seen parents are enigmas: her father obsessed with keeping bees and writing a manifesto, her mother alternately sending love letters to an unknown lover and burning them. And after her sister plays a cruel and dominating trick on her, Ana distances herself from even her and plunges into her search for the monster. She moves about in a strange world with little supervision or guidance. She stands in her courtyard at night, looking up at the moon and closing her eyes as the autumn wind brushes across her face. It is her world, a world of confusion and wonder.

It’s never clear exactly why Ana wants to find the monster. She’s disturbed by its accidental murder of the girl in Whale’s film, but this would seem to repel her from Frankenstein’s creation, not attract her to it. And whether or not she succeeds in her quest is a question that can, perhaps, never be answered. In the wonderful extras on The Criterion Collection’s recent DVD release of the film, several of those involved in its making reveal that they still don’t know what the “spirit of the beehive” really is, nor what “the monster” represents. There’s ample evidence that Ana herself is the spirit, or that she is the monster. The film’s true monster could be her older sister, or it could be the AWOL soldier who depends on Ana for food. And then there’s the fact that the film is set around 1940, when Franco had recently taken power, and was made in 1973 when he was still in power. Is he the monster? Perhaps the monster is simply the invisible friend Ana seeks for companionship.

By the end of the film, we know as little about the events of the plot as we do about the spirit or the monster. As in life, we have developed more questions than answers as time has passed, and yet, inevitably, we are altered.

At the start of Whale’s film, a tuxedoed presenter advises the audience, “Prepare yourself. You may be shocked or even horrified. But I would advise you not to take it too seriously.” But Victor Erice’s “Spirit of the Beehive” is a film to take very seriously. From the staggering beauty of the images to the elegance of the score to the impossible performance of Ana Torrent as Ana, it is a film of grandeur and loveliness that enriches the viewer as it unfolds. It is a film to live with. And it is as different from the “Silent Hill” and “Cave” up at the mall as a can of Coke is from an orange blossom.

Now, forget this. Forget every word of it. Give yourself a concussion if necessary. Take some time out with your friends or your love, light that jack-o-lantern, and be patient with this film. It will make you happy to be alive.