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Watch The Spirit of the Beehive (in Spanish with English subtitles) online for free this weekend only, right here. The password is clasicoscontigojulio3

Some monsters you imagine, but horror is real
By Jessica Zafra

The first thing you notice about The Spirit of the Beehive is its silence. It has a physical presence. You are always aware of it, because silence is the point: the things we don’t say, the truths we will not utter.

Victor Erice’s 1973 debut begins with the arrival of a traveling cinema in a little town in Spain. It is 1940, and the movie is James Whale’s Frankenstein. Two little girls, Isabel and her wide-eyed little sister, Ana, are in the audience, enraptured.

In their once-grand house, their father tends to his apiary. He writes a letter musing on the frantic activity within the glass beehive—what is it for? Their mother writes to someone she has not seen since the civil war. She rides her bicycle to the station to catch the mail train, whose black-wreathed screams puncture the silence. Their manner is furtive, as if any sudden movement would shatter the inertia.

No one has a conversation, with the exception of the girls, who whisper in their bedroom. Why are they whispering? Who will hear them? I’ve seen Frankenstein’s monster, Isabel claims, in the empty farmhouse with the well. And like many little girls in countless fairy tales, Ana goes to find the monster.
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Jessica Zafra presenta «El espíritu de la colmena» (audio en inglés) from Instituto Cervantes on Vimeo.

Instituto Cervantes de Manila and the Embassy of Spain invite you to enjoy Spanish film classics with «Clásicos contigo / Classics with You». On the weekends of July, enjoy free online screenings of selected masterpieces from Spain through the Instituto Cervantes Vimeo channel. The five films are: The Spirit of the Beehive (1973) and The South (1983) by Víctor Erice; The Holy Innocents (1984) by Mario Camus; La vaquilla (1985) by Luis García Berlanga; and The good star (1987) by Ricardo Franco.

The Spirit of the Beehive will be available on the Instituto Cervantes Vimeo channel on July 4 and 5. To access the link to the movie and password, log on to Instituto Cervantes de Manila’s website: http://manila.cervantes.es

Along with this film cycle, Instituto Cervantes and the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines are launching Cineclub Pelikula, an online cinema club. Video discussions conducted by writer and cultural activist Jessica Zafra will take place every Sunday on the Zoom platform. The first webinar, on El espíritu de la colmena (The Spirit of the Beehive), is scheduled for 5 July at 5pm.

The films, presented by Instituto Cervantes in collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in the Philippines, and the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences of Spain, will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles. Admission is free. For further information and updates on this film series, please check out http://manila.cervantes.es or Instituto Cervantes’ Facebook page: www.facebook.com/InstitutoCervantesManila

Housework is therapeutic (unless you are a housewife and/or you have to do it for a living). I mopped the floor with a solution of bleach and felt my anxiety dissipating. Then I had a comforting meal of Ligo sardines, rice (ran out of bread and bought plain rice from the canteen next door), and raw lettuce (I save myself the effort of making vegetables attractive to me and just eat them raw). I had a good nap, a phone conversation with a friend whose hypochondria has been cured by the pandemic (Why worry about getting sick when everyone is doing the same thing?), and a writing workshop session on Zoom. I walked 3km inside my apartment.
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Maurice Ruiz de Luzuriaga Gallaga. Photo from wikipedia.

Peque Gallaga died in Bacolod this morning. He had been in poor health for some time. I had not seen him in many years, so for now I can deny that he no longer exists. How can he be dead when Oro, Plata, Mata, Virgin Forest, Scorpio Nights, Manananggal, Tiyanak, Sonata, so many wonderful—and don’t forget: weird—movies are still with us? So they were flawed, big deal, even his flaws were interesting. Peque was an authority on Tolkien, so I will think of him as Gandalf the Grey: fallen in battle with the Balrog, to return at the turning of the tide.
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If I lived at the Metropolitan Museum in NY, my cats would have their birthday parties in the Temple of Dendur.

I’ve kept it together for 6 weeks by following a schedule. I’ve never been so disciplined in my life. If I’d been like this in high school and college, who knows what I might have achieved? I might have satisfied my parents’ ambitions, become rich and powerful, have people at my beck and call…

I wouldn’t be writing today.
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Photo from amazon.com.

Yesterday the airconditioner in the living room was whirring and blowing air, but not getting cold. The average temperature round noon is 36 degrees, but feels like 42. May has just begun, and meteorologists expect this to be the hottest year in history. Where would I find an aircon repairman in lockdown? I couldn’t complain: I have food, books, and cats. Shut up and write.
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