Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren potently examines family and identity in 20,000 Species of Bees

Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren's 20,000 Species of Bees delivers a raw peek into a summer of shame within a matriarchal family in Spain.

The film begins with Ane (Patricia López Arnaiz) and her three children leaving France without her husband to visit her beekeeping family in the Basque Country.  It follows Sofía Otero, who plays an eight-year-old transgender girl, as she begins to express to her family that she is a girl and wants to be called Lucía. The script is full of symbolism, from the popular transgender icon  “the mermaid” to Paracelsus’ sylphids—invisible air creatures, usually depicted as beautiful women—to Catholic saints such as St. Lucía, the saint after whom Lucía names herself. Lucía uses these stories to make sense of herself and to communicate with her family indirectly.

Sofía Otero and Patricia López Arnaiz are a gripping duo, perfectly capturing the love, frustration, and tension that make up a disconnected relationship between child and mother. Ane truly loves Lucía and tries to comfort her and protect her from scorn, but simultaneously is in deep denial and complete fear. Their relationship is the thread of the film and each up and down is in direct correlation with that relationship.

The film is entirely stripped down. There is no film score, only natural sound, which sucks the viewer into the middle of the family as if we’re a village playmate following Lucía around. Both López Arnaiz and Otero’s expressions are natural scene-stealers. Their faces are like big fish nets that capture every emotion from experiencing a confusing, emotionally tumultuous time. Ane doesn’t wear makeup, which emphasizes her depiction of a tired mom, but also heightens the rawness of her emotions. She walks around carrying her shame on her face like an open wound. 

Otero’s face is like water. Her ability to express flickers of sadness and frustration throughout the film is astounding. She is the breakout star of this film. Her ability to understand the nuances of her character and act with such empathy for her young age shows high emotional intelligence. In 2023, she became the youngest person to ever win the ​​Silver Bear for Best Leading Performance at the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival. Her character Lucía serves as a mirror to her family members, her shame forces the entire family to confront their shame. 

Otero’s physical acting was amazing as well, her mannerisms in the film were so feminine and graceful. She walks through the movie adorning herself with rosaries as necklaces or twirling her hair, evoking the aura of a sylphid or mermaid. Her relationship with water reflects how much she is allowed to be herself. She hates going in the pool at the beginning of the film because she doesn’t like wearing her swim trunks, but as the film goes on and her relationship with her family changes, so does her relationship with water.

The family owns a workshop, where they use beeswax to sculpt figures. In one scene Ane is sculpting self-portraits with her children, her older daughter, sculpts herself “but with the perfect body,” and Lucía sculpts herself as a mermaid. Regardless of whether they are cisgender or transgender, each character perceived themselves and their bodies differently and desired to sculpt something different than the body they’re living in.

Solaguren plays around with the concept of “crafting bodies,” not just symbolically, but visually. She surrounds the characters with fragments of body parts. Ane talks on the phone behind ads of women in bathing suit tops, Lucía plays with a Barbie doll that is just the waist down, and at their local swimming pool, there are shots of random people’s legs, butts, torsos in the background, but there’s never a full nude scene, only parts. The shots are reminiscent of vintage paper doll pieces, where children can mix and match different torsos with legs and heads. 

The most endearing aspect of the film was Lucía’s relationship with her siblings and village playmates. In a 2023 interview with Girls on Top, Solaguren said this about working with children during the casting process: “I wanted to include asking questions about their experience of trans people in their lives. It turns out that most of them knew someone, even if it was from their mum's neighbors, someone in their class, or someone in the playground. I was really pleasantly surprised that I always got really good responses from them. I asked, ‘What are these trans people like?’ They'd always say, ‘Well, they're normal. I don't know what you want me to say.’” 

This child-like acceptance is not missing from the film. One of the most heart-wrenching scenes is when Lucía is crying silently in bed while her parents are fighting about her in the background and her brother is gripping her hand trying to comfort her. The children knew who Lucía was long before any adult figure in the film did and they’re the first to validate her by using her new name.

This movie is a lasagna of layers, metaphors, and characters all grappling with their relationship with gender. For people like me, who love depth, this is an interesting film to analyze. My one critique is that a lot is going on in the plot beyond Lucía’s character development which makes the film slightly confusing. Family lore is discovered, Ane’s marriage is in shambles, the family is in financial trouble, and there is a baptism. The viewer is forced to pick up on these subplots on their own because nothing is explained fully. Additionally, there are a lot of long shots of the Basque Countryside which helps the viewer fully immerse into Spanish village life, at the cost of making the film feel slow and overly long.

Regardless of its minor issues, 20,000 Species of Bees left me in tears and yearning to watch more of Otero and Lopez Arnaiz on the screen, as well as more socially rooted Spanish films. With an outstanding female cast, beautiful cinematography, and a moving script, it’s no surprise that Solaguren's 20,000 Species of Bees broke the record for the highest number of Goya award nominations (15) for a directorial debut in Spain. Solaguren is also the 7th female director in a row to win the Goya’s Best New Director award, indicating that it’s women who are making history in Spain.