The Spirit of The Beehive - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

When the film was re-released in the United States in early 2007, A.O. Scott, film critic for The New York Times, reviewed the film and lauded the direction of the drama, writing, "The story that emerges from lovely, lovingly considered images is at once lucid and enigmatic, poised between adult longing and childlike eagerness, sorrowful knowledge and startled innocence."

Film critic Dan Callahan praised the film's cinematography, story, direction and acting. He wrote, "Every magic hour, light-drenched image in Victor Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive is filled with mysterious dread...There's something voluptuous about the cinematography, and this suits the sense of emerging sexuality in the girls, especially in the scene where Isabel speculatively paints her lips with blood from her own finger... Torrent, with her severe, beautiful little face, provides an eerily unflappable presence to center the film. The one time she smiles, it's like a small miracle, a glimpse of grace amid the uneasiness of black cats, hurtling black trains, devouring fire and poisonous mushrooms. These signs of dismay haunt the movie."

Currently, the film has a 100 percent "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes, based on eighteen reviews.

By November 20, 2012, the film has been entered into Roger Ebert's "Great Movies" section.