The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

Young Ana, in a small Spanish village, in a theatre so poor you have to bring your own chair, watches Frankenstein (1931) for the first time. Ana’s eyes drink in the majesty of everything as only the eyes of childhood can, and it sets in motion a new way of thinking that changes her life forever.
It’s a slow-moving foreign language film that will appear to have very little happening on the surface if you’re not accustomed to this kind of thing, but delve deeper and you’ll discover a lot simmering beneath it.
The economic situation and political allegory are plain to see, but they don’t suffocate the narrative, because it’s from a child’s perspective most of the time; even the breakdown of the family unit is handled quietly.

3½ honeycombs out of 5