Has anyone seen the movie "The Spirit of the Beehive"?

It's supposed to be a classic. I thought it was beautifully shot, well acted. But could someone explain what it was all about? What was Anna's obsession with Frankenstein? Did he represent Franco? The War? I'm afraid it went totally over my head.

Most people interpret El espíritu de la colmena as a political commentary about Franco's Spain during the Civil War. I maintain that it is totally irrelevant. The film never touches on any aspects specific to Spain and the war. That's because its veiled meaning is both universal and timeless. El espíritu de la colmena is a highly underrated masterpiece of esoteric film making in the Spanish tradition. Luis Bunuel belongs to that tradition, in particular his similarly themed film El Angel exterminador (which I have also deconstructed on IMDb).

The woman blowing a small trumpet and announcing the Frankenstein Film (henceforth: FF) at the beginning sets the tone: she is an angel, announcing the divine message of cinematic religion. The man unloading the truck says the film is "the greatest" and "magnificent". The (incense burning) brazier brought into the cinema also adds to the religious meaning of the FF experience. The introduction (as is the whole dialog) in the FF is a sermon.

The FF cinema represents the orthodox view of the Catholic church. Both the mother and the father do not attend the cinema because they trust their own methods more. The mother is clueless about reaching the esoteric goal, when she plays the piano it is hopelessly discordant: she is not attuned to the celestial harmonies. Yet she still yearns for spiritual salvation, so she resorts to prayer in the form of writing a letter personally addressing God, though she doesn't know whether S/He is still alive. She writes about the separation of Man from hir divine state, of which only the "walls" (the physical body) remain, and the longing to return back to the divine state. The prayer is sent by train, the astral path to the divine as can be seen later on when Ana and Isobel put their ear to the railway track waiting for the arrival of their guiding spirit. Towards the end of the film the mother gives up seeking communication with the divine through prayer as she throws her letter into the fire.

The beekeeper's quest is celestial: his housekeeper tells him to "come out of the clouds". He is a mystical adept working to attain his spiritual goal by attending to his hives. The beehive symbolizes the human mind, built up of many cells which are occupied by buzzing bees symbolizing the frenzied neural activity of consciousness (like the expression: to have a bee in one's bonnet). He blows smoke into the hives: this is an attempt to chase away the bees, to clear his mind from thoughts through meditation. As a true alchemical scientist he has built a glass/crystal hive, symbolizing the divine clarity of mind. He also has a cylindrical hive with an "invading spiral" inside it, which may symbolize the helical DNA, the pervasive blueprint of life. Ana blows into the hive, like her father she tries to influence the neural bees inside the mind.

Rather than follow the orthodox religion, the beekeeper father follows his own the path, identifying with the ascetic monk. The painting in his study is of St. Hieronymus a.k.a. the St. Jerome, who removed a thorn from the lion's paw (more about that later). His followers, the Hieronymites, were a monastic brotherhood of austerely living hermits established in 14th century Toledo. The beekeeper's garments represent the monk's habit. There is a contradiction between his chosen path of the ascetic monk-hermit and his real life as a family man. That is why, despite all his knowledge, he will ultimately fail.

The doors of his study (mind) have the cellular hive structure; by opening them he opens his mind to a more receptive state. On the balcony the dialog of the FF speaks to him from afar, yet he rationally understands the esoteric message about expanding consciousness and enlightenment conveyed in the orthodox dogma: even though his method is different from the cinematic church, his goal is the same. (Does anyone know if all that dialog is in James Whale's Frankenstein film too?)

Cut to the scene in the FF about an idyllic state of Eden-like innocence (the monster and the child throwing flowers into the lake) to which Man wishes to return, intercut with the mother returning after posting her letter expressing her wish to return to that same divine state. The Fall of Man due to Original Sin is symbolized by the death of the child and the monster in the FF. Ana does not understand why this must happen, and when she dares to ask, the authoritarian FF sermon shouts: "Silence!" Later in bed, Isabel explains that it's fake, a movie (= church) trick. In other words, a lie to keep people in their place by laying a self-destructive guilt trip upon them. She has seen Man in the divine state (guardian angel), who puts on a costume when going outside (being born into a physical body). In order to see your guardian angel you have to become friends with it (attune yourself to its nature).

Now it's time to explain the mushroom symbolism in the film, much of which may seem absurd and far fetched at first glance. Lest anyone thinks I'm making it all up, many scholarly books have been written on the subject, which is called ethnomycology. I recommend authors Clark Heinrich and Carl A.P. Ruck.

The colour red is important in the film. It symbolizes the red cap of the hallucinogenic Amanita muscaria (fly agaric) mushroom. The mushroom is shown during the opening titles, and the fly agaric is also mentioned in the mushroom picking scene with the father. On the children's green (forest) headboards of their beds are red flowers with white dots, painted so as to resemble the mushroom, and their sheets also contain red flowers. And even Ana's mother is wearing a red shirt with white dots. Ana's school case, which she carries around everywhere, is also red: like the red mushroom it is a vessel of knowledge. St Jerome in the painting has a red cardinal's hat, like a red mushroom cap ("cap" comes from the Latin "caput", meaning "head").

The angel in the painting in the girls' bedroom also symbolizes the fly agaric mushroom: both are a messenger from the divine, the wings of the angel resembling the gills underneath the fly agaric cap. The angel (mushroom) in the painting leads the child (Ana, or the pure Man) by the hand.

The fact that the father is brewing something in his study (the place of the mind), rather than in the kitchen (what one would normally expect), indicates that it is not a regular drink like tea or coffee, but a mind expanding potion. The red pot also symbolizes the red mushroom as a vessel of divine knowledge. And even the father's face is lit red as he pensively smells/inhales the potion. Then he listens to a radio broadcast using headphones but we don't get to hear what he hears. One would be inclined to think he is hearing a clandestine message of a political propaganda broadcast by the Republican left. But on an esoteric level it symbolizes that he receives a divine message as an internal voice in his mind, enabled by ingesting his potion. What he writes in his diary after receiving this message is a key scene of the whole film, full of esoteric meaning.

In the classroom Ana, through the purity of her quest (and the help of Isabel) makes the blind Don José doll (ignorant Man) see the divine truth by giving him eyes. After school Ana and Isobel go to the barn with the well. The well is a symbol of the portal from the dimension that the Tibetan Book of the Dead calls the Bardo: the state of inbetween two reincarnations. The portal (the well, vesica pisces, birth canal) through which beings enter our physical world. The words "well" and "vulva" both have the same etymological origin. Ana tries to contact the Bardo dimension by shouting down the well and throwing a stone into it. Spiritually great beings wander around there, compared to which her own footprint is tiny, and she is in humble awe. But she doesn't encounter her guiding spirit. Like Percival in the Holy Grail myth she is not yet ready. Her father has not yet initiated her into the secrets of the mushroom: the scene which follows immediately after.

The Father explains about the mushroom in a very coy manner. He points to the mountain, always a symbol of holiness and a natural place for fly agarics to grow in warmer climates which otherwise tend to be too dry. Ana is fascinated by the demonic, lethal nature of the bad mushroom.

Then there is the scene where Isabel strangles the cat. The cat and the lion of St. Jerome, a close-up of which follows straight after the cat strangling, may be a reference to the biblical Judges 14:5-14, in which the cultural hero Samson slays a lion and finds a swarm of bees and honey in its carcass. He reformulates his adventure as an allegorical riddle for his friends: "...out of the strong came forth sweetness." Samson's riddle conveys how Death (both the lion and the skull in the St. Jerome painting), that devouring monster, being robbed of his sting and stripped of his horror, forwards the soul to the heavenly realms of sweet bliss. In other words, (the spirit of) the lion (or another animal) becomes the hero's ally after its dangerous nature is neutralized (or slain). After St. Jerome removes the thorn from the lion's paw the lion becomes his friend. In Greek mythology we have a very similar tale, in which the hero Heracles slays Periclymenus (a son of Poseidon) who shape-shifts into various animals, including a lion, an eagle and a swarm of bees. The World (XXI) a.k.a. The Universe card in the major arcana of the Tarot deck shows similar animals and represents an ending to a cycle of life. In the Tree of Life of the Kabbalah it lies on the path between Malkuth (earth) and Yesod (moon).

After the World card the next big cycle in the major arcana of the Tarot deck begins with the Fool card (0/XXII), represented by Isabel behaving like a trickster towards Ana. The Fool, standing on a precipice, apparently about to make a leap of faith into the abyss of oblivion, is represented by Isabel seemingly haven fallen off the rocking chair. Sunlight shines through the balcony doors onto Isabel representing the divine nature of her crazy state. We hear a dog barking, either her animal nature or the real world calling, a reality check. In universal mythology, The Fool is often the youngest child who accomplishes great feats despite the apparently better position of older siblings. In the film this is clearly Ana, hence Isabel is acting out Ana's fate for her. Ana is apprehensive about a great, yet unknown, change that lies ahead.

The fire jumping scene might symbolize crossing the Abyss in the Kabbalah and/or baptism by fire in which one receives the grace of the Holy Spirit. The mixing of moon (Yesod) and railway (the subjective paths on the Tree of Life) images refers to astral travel. The soldier/spirit arrives by the astral train. Noteworthy is that, like many mythological creatures and heros, he has a problem with one of his feet, he is wounded. Lameness indicates being earth-born and is a mushroom (or botanical) connection, as mushrooms have only one leg (i.e. the stalk). For instance the Vedic, Soma related deity Aja Ekapad means "not born , single foot". The Sciapod ("Shadefoot", the mushroom resembles a parasol) creatures. Hephaestus was a lame god. Jason of the Argonauts loses his sandal. Achilles and his heel. Jacob had a problem with his thigh in Genesis 32. The Hebrew word for "lame" has the same etymological origin as the Jewish Easter Pesach (Passover, as in "to skip" when one limps). But as usual, I digress.

Ana gives the soldier/spirit a sacramental apple, another mushroom symbol which can be seen in the fruit of the garden of Eden and the Greek golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides. Originally the word "apple" meant any kind of fruit from a tree, and the fly agaric is a mycorrhizal fungus: it only grows on the roots of certain trees (fir, oak and birch). Before this was properly understood people thought the trees produced the fly agarics as their own fruit, or at least associated them as such. Ana also brings him new clothes, representing a physical body: the spirit is incarnated. Like the birth of Jesus it happens in a barnyard stable.

The soldier/spirit guide is soon dealt with in the way that society tends to do with incarnated spirits such as Jesus Christ and his pagan equivalents. When Ana goes back to look for the soldier/spirit we see blood and bread (both mushroom symbols) referring to Christ. Even the esoterically inclined father doesn't recognize the soldier/spirit as such, because his heart is not pure enough (like Sir Lancelot in the Holy Grail myth), or perhaps because Ana's personal guardian angel can only be recognized by her.

Betrayed by her father, Ana wanders off and her family does not know where she is. She is the female version of The Prodigal Son, the parable told by Jesus (Luke 15:11-32). The story has significant importance in Gnosticism (The Hymn of the Pearl, from the apocryphal Acts of Thomas) and alchemy. A child goes on a mission in a foreign land and then forgets his past and his family. A divine messenger is sent to remind him of his background and his mission, and then he finds his treasure and returns. It is an allegory about the human condition, that we are spirits lost in a world of matter and forgetful our true origin. In the film Ana wanders off and finds the mushroom, which may both the messenger and the treasure at once. Or alternatively, the mushroom is the messenger and the vision of Frankenstein/Man as pure spirit is the treasure.

The mushroom Ana squats down to touch could be the hallucinogenic brown Amanita pantherina (related to the red fly agaric). Though it lacks the characteristic white spots of the remnant veil common to many agarics, sometimes these spots are washed away by rain. But the exact species of that mushroom is not important. The symbolism throughout the whole film tells us what the brown mushroom stands for. As so often happens, the real Eucharist of the divine mushroom is substituted by something else which has lost its true meaning to the uninitiated: the Vedic Soma, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge/Immortality in Eden, Manna in Exodus, the "Mann" truffle in the Islamic Hadith, Ezekiel's wheels and scrolls, the globe of Atlas and the Golden Apples in the garden of the Hesperides, the Gorgon Medusa, the Golden Fleece (Agnus Dei), the wine and bread/host wafer (body of Christ) in the Catholic mass, the Holy Grail, The Philosopher's Stone, Snow White's apple, red Christmas ornaments, etc...

After ingesting (communion with) the mushroom, Ana has a vision about Man's original divine nature (Frankenstein's monster), through gazing into the lake (emotions/subconscious). When she awakes her head is lying on the red school case (mushroom) making a direct physical connection between the mushroom and her mind in its sleeping (entranced) state. This same connection can be seen in the alchemical painting Prophet Elijah in the Desert by Renaissance painter Dieric Bouts The Elder, in which a sleeping (entranced) Elijah's head is in close proximity to a mushroom in the shape of a piece of bread (cap) on a cup (stalk).

Towards the end the father sleeps, and his wife takes off his glasses and turns off the light: though he has gained knowledge from his spiritual work, he is denied enlightenment because his worldly commitment (his family) and his over reliance on rationality have blocked his path. Ana drinks water (emotions/subconscious) and bathes in the moonlight (Yesod) to sound of the train (astral travel). She is deemed "sick" by society, but her quest continues.

Young children are naturally tripping due to a hallucinogenic substance called N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT), which is made in the pineal gland (third eye chakra) in our brain, though we tend to dismiss that state as merely the overactive imagination of children. DMT is chemically related to the hallucinogenic chemical in psilocybin mushrooms called 4-Hydroxy-N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (a.k.a. psilocin). As children grow older the pineal gland calcifies reducing the amount of DMT, which in turn causes their imagination to vastly decrease: The Fall of Man tragically replays itself during the childhood of every individual.

On an apicultural side note: it was an ancient custom that the hallucinogenic property of mushrooms was prolonged by preserving the mushrooms in honey (from which mead could be made), and in some cases bees are known to produce hallucinogenic honey from certain plants that produce chemicals with such properties. But that's another story, for another film perhaps.

:crazy:


Mushrooms have a way of making certain people see all things as mushroom related.

The cinematography and the purity of the children's performances were enough for me to recommend it as a classic.

I don't think there's a simple, straightforward, one size fits all way to read this film. Your interpretation of the symbolism of Frankenstein makes perfecr sense. There are some interesting essays (or at least one) on the film at the Criterion Collection website. (CC put out the film on DVD.) If I recall correctly, one of the essays pointed to the loneliness the girls are enduring in this backwater town as a central theme. Evidently, they've come to wait out the war far from the city where the father is a professor or scientist. Ana identifies with the girl Frankenstein encounters by the lake, who is so desperate for a playmate (and so innocent) that she'll open her heart to a monster. This makes the girl's death particularly disturbing--it's evidently Ana's first encounter with the idea that she herself could die. There's a connection, too, between the cautionary tale that Frankenstein is and the father's profession--something about scientific hubris and unintended consequences. And of course the republican whom she meets in the barn is a Frankenstein figure. Of course, he's not the monster, in the end.

Another viewing would probably deepen your experience of the film.

I'll give it that. Maybe I'll check it out again 6 months from now.