Of monsters, spirits, soldiers and the power of imagination. A psychoanalytic lens on Victor Erice’s “The spirit of the beehive” (El espíritu de la colmena)
Abstract
My article on Victor Erice’s The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) looks at the ambivalent fantasies of two Spanish young girls, excited by the screening of the film Frankenstein in their village town-hall. I offer an interpretation of their fantasies in the context of those children’s psychological development, of their relationship with emotionally distant parents, and of the post-Civil War historical period when the story takes place.
