Víctor Erice
Born
Víctor Erice Aras

(1940-06-30) 30 June 1940
Karrantza, Biscay, Spain
Alma materUniversity of Madrid
Occupations
  • Film director
  • writer
Years active1967–present

Víctor Erice Aras (Spanish: [ˈbiɣtoɾ eˈɾiθe]; born 30 June 1940) is a Spanish film director. He is best known for his two feature fiction films, The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), which many regard as one of the greatest Spanish films ever made,[1][2] and El Sur (1983).

Early life

Erice was born in Karrantza, Biscay. He studied law, political science, and economics at the University of Madrid. He also attended the Escuela Oficial de Cinematografia in 1963 to study film direction.

Career

He wrote film criticism and reviews for the Spanish film journal Nuestro Cine, and made a series of short films before making his first feature film, The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), a critical portrait of 1940s rural Spain.

Erice was among other filmmakers, such as Luis Buñuel, who lived in “such restricted societies as Franco’s Spain,” to take aim at the authoritarian rule in power. At the time his first film was released in 1973, Francisco Franco was still in power.[3] One of the things The Spirit of the Beehive is known for is its use of symbolism to portray what life was like in Spain under Franco’s rule.[4] Setting the movie in 1940, at the start of Franco’s rule, was a risk for Erice, given that the film “wasn't a propagandist effort in which stalwart Francoists won victories against evil, priest-massacring Republicans.”[5]

Ten years later, Erice wrote and directed El Sur (1983), based on a story from Adelaida García Morales, another highly regarded film, although the producer Elías Querejeta only allowed him to film the first two-thirds of the story. His third movie, The Quince Tree Sun (1992) is a documentary about painter Antonio López García. The film won the Jury Prize and the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1992 Cannes Film Festival.[6]

Erice worked in the development of (and was set to direct) The Shanghai Spell, the adaptation of the Juan Marsé's namesake novel, but producer Andrés Vicente Gómez eventually tasked the project to Fernando Trueba instead.[7] This rejection entailed "a great deal of frustration" for Erice.[7]

He was a member of the jury at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May.[8]

At the 2014 Locarno Film Festival, Erice was awarded with a Golden Leopard award for lifetime achievement.[9]

In July 2022, thirty years after his last full-length film, a project for a new Erice film (Cerrar los ojos) supported by Pecado Films, Tándem Films, Nautilus as well as Canal Sur was revealed to be in development[10]. The film premiered in the following year at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and was met with very positive reviews[11].

Critics

Geoff Andrew, in the Time Out Film Guide, praises Erice's contribution to Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet (Lifeline) as "quite masterly", adding "it only makes you wish he worked more frequently".[12] Excluding that short film, he has produced only three major works: The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), El Sur (1983) and Dream of Light (1992, The Quince Tree Sun). Critic Tony Rayns describes The Spirit of the Beehive as "a haunting mood piece that dispenses with plot and works its spells through intricate patterns of sound and image"[13] and of El Sur it has been said that "Erice creates his film as a canvas, conjuring painterly images of slow dissolves and shafts of light that match Caravaggio in their power to animate a scene of stillness, or freeze one of mad movement".

Legacy

Erice's work portraying children dreaming and their attraction to fantastic worlds during and around times like the Spanish Civil War would go on to influence Guillermo del Toro and his respective films, including The Devil's Backbone, and Pan's Labyrinth.[5]

Filmography

Film

Year Film Credited as Notes
Director Writer Producer
1967 El próximo otoño No Yes No
1968 Oscuros sueños de agosto No Yes No
1973 El espíritu de la colmena Yes Yes No
1983 El sur Yes Yes No
1992 El sol del membrillo Yes Yes No Documentary film
2016 Víctor Erice: Abbas Kiarostami. Correspondencias Yes Yes Yes Experimental documentary film co-directed with Abbas Kiarostami started as an audiovisual exposition in 2006 and released as a movie in 2016.
Also co-cinematographer.
2023 Close Your Eyes Yes Yes Yes

Short film[14]

Year Film Credited as Notes
Director Writer
1961 Al final de la fiesta subieron a la terraza Yes No Student film
1962 Páginas De Un Diario Perdido Yes No
Entre Las Vías Yes No
1963 Los Días Perdidos Yes Yes
1969 Segment 3 Yes Yes Segment of the anthology film "Los Desafíos".
2002 Lifeline Yes Yes Segment of the anthology film "Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet".
2003 Apuntes (1990-2003) Yes Yes Documentary medium-length film about his documentary "El Sol del Membrillo".
2005 Apoyo de la luz Yes Yes Also cinematographer.
2006 La Morte Rouge Yes Yes Experimental documentary short film
Also narrator and San Sebastián photos.
2007 Sea-Mail Yes Yes Also producer, camera operator and main actor.
2012 Ana Three Minutes Yes Yes Segment of the anthology film "3.11 Sense of Home".
Vidros Partidos Yes Yes Segment of the anthology film "Centro Histórico"
Also segment producer.
2018 Plegaría Yes No Short film based on photos taken by him
Also producer.
2019 Piedra y cielo Yes No Video installation based on the work of Jorge Oteiza.

Awards

Jury Prize, 1992 Cannes Film Festival[15]

FIRPRESCI Prize, 1992 Cannes Film Festival[16]

Golden Leopard for lifetime achievement[9]

References

  1. ↑ Ebert, Roger (November 20, 2012). "Spirit of the Beehive Movie Review (1973)". Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  2. ↑ "1,000 Greatest Films (Full List)". They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?. February 7, 2016. Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  3. ↑ "Film Notes -Spirit of the Beehive". www.albany.edu. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  4. ↑ "The Spirit of the Beehive", Wikipedia, 2020-05-01, retrieved 2020-05-01
  5. 1 2 "Empire Essay: The Spirit Of The Beehive". Empire. 2007-02-12. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  6. ↑ "Festival de Cannes: Dream of Light". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-08-14.
  7. 1 2 Correo, Guillermo (7 July 2022). "Víctor Erice vuelve al largometraje después de tres décadas con 'Cerrar los ojos'". El Cultural – via El Español.
  8. ↑ "Hollywood Reporter: Cannes Lineup". hollywoodreporter. Archived from the original on April 22, 2010. Retrieved 2010-04-15.
  9. 1 2 Vivarelli, Nick (2014-05-15). "Locarno Film Festival To Honor Spanish Auteur Victor Erice". Variety. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  10. ↑ "Víctor Erice rodará una nueva película 30 años después". eldiario.es. 6 July 2022.
  11. ↑ "Close Your Eyes". www.metacritic.com. Retrieved 2024-01-10.
  12. ↑ Quoted in "Time Out" Film Guide: 17, 2008, p. 1061.
  13. ↑ Quoted in "Time Out" Film Guide: 17, 2008, p. 1003.
  14. ↑ "Víctor Erice". IMDb. Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  15. ↑ AlloCine. "Prix du Jury - Festival de Cannes". AlloCiné (in French). Retrieved 2020-05-01.
  16. ↑ "1992 Cannes Film Festival", Wikipedia, 2019-12-26, retrieved 2020-05-01
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