Виктор Эрисе: Испандық режиссердің өмірі мен шығармашылығы

Spanish filmmaker

Víctor Erice Aras (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, and El Sur (1983).

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.

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 the 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. 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. 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.”

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. 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. He was a member of the jury at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival in May. At the 2014 Locarno Film Festival, Erice was awarded with a Golden Leopard award for lifetime achievement. 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. The film premiered in the following year at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival and was met with very positive reviews.

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". Excluding that short film, Erice 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" 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".

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.

YearFilmCredited asNotes Director Writer Producer 1967 El próximo otoño1968 Oscuros sueños de agosto 1973 El espíritu de la colmena 1983 El sur 1992 El sol del membrillo Documentary film2016Víctor Erice: Abbas Kiarostami. Correspondencias 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

YearFilmCredited asNotes Director Writer1961Al final de la fiesta subieron a la terrazaStudent film1962Páginas De Un Diario PerdidoEntre Las Vías1963Los Días Perdidos1969Segment 3 Segment of the anthology film "Los Desafíos".2002Lifeline Segment of the anthology film "Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet".2003Apuntes (1990 2003) Documentary medium length film about his documentary "El Sol del Membrillo".2005Apoyo de la luzAlso cinematographer.2006La Morte Rouge Experimental documentary short filmAlso narrator and San Sebastián photos.2007Sea Mail Also producer, camera operator and main actor.2012Ana Three Minutes Segment of the anthology film "3.11 Sense of Home". Vidros Partidos Segment of the anthology film "Centro Histórico"Also segment producer.2018PlegaríaShort film based on photos taken by himAlso producer.2019Piedra y cieloVideo installation based on the work of Jorge Oteiza.