VALLEY OF THE BEES (1967; dir. Frantisek Vlácil, scrw. FV + Vladimir Körner)

If bees leave their hive, it was taken as a sign that the hive’s owner would soon die.
WOMEN’S DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLS AND SACRED OBJECTS

Young beekeeper Ondrej of Wolfenberg (tending flock à la later shepherd) summoned to wedding procession (behind head, as in subconscious: "call" from w/i, to unite disparate parts of self) of father the king (higher self) + his teen bride (O’s own transition btwn adulthood + youth; union also of spirit + body, as Christian + pagan in 12th Century world [à la 12-yr-old O] at similar crossroads) whom O told to kiss (oedipal conflict - all those stirring bees), presenting her instead w/ basket of flowers (tossed like snow/confetti: purity) w/ live bats at bottom (O’s juvenile regard for uterus/fem sex), prompting dad to throw him bodily at wall (dividing line he literally "hits" + cannot cross for yrs thereafter) + to promise him to Merciful Virgin (monasterial Order of Crusaders: incarceration there as in womb [aka hive] never 2B conceived + born into sexual maturity) shd he survive (blow to head as to rationality).

"Takes up the cross" (martyrs self) + given sword (parallel img; Order’s confusion of beneficent pwr for violent phallus), renouncing wmn + riches (1 + same; turning back on enriching fem qualities w/i) to Order (barely disguised Right Reason), next seen naked in surf (amniotic fluid; starting over), joined yrs later (as "Order became more pwrful" – growing into one-sided/pathological adulthood) by fellow Brother Armin von Heide (twinned, failure to admit of father/adult self’s sexual unity w/ Other causing division in self) who speaks of sect where some have selves walled alive (impulse twd greater w/drawal + estrangement from world aka sleep) + how best to numb self to chill waters ("Suffering is the way to God": symptom key to understanding complex, O’s internship not punishment but indulgence/realization of same); made pilgrimage (Holy Land locus of personal pain/heart of trauma) but didn’t get to Jerusalem (rebirth out of mania) due to "heat + pagans" (emotions/drives + own unbelief), at dinner gives him his fish (romance drained of eros "suffering").

While out riding, O encounters missing Brother Rotgier (broken-off part of psyche/soul) in need of horse to cross river (body as true "transport," leaving Order refuting dualism) + who suggests they go to his mountain estate ("elevated" condition), given away when his discarded raiment (w/ cross insignia: shirking masochism) found downstream by Armin/others (arising to awareness); find O KO’d (disengaging ego to permit unthinkable to play out), he confined to cell/fast for "weakness" (aka open mind, for which w/drawal cure), captured Bro Rot thrown to dogs (consumed by animals fulfillment of carnal impulse; Christians missing more than Brother).

At fast’s end (as of denial), Armin finds O’s cell empty (à la Christ-tomb; he Rotgier’s risen soul) + asks to go find him (inquiry after own wayward resolve), stopping on way to ask directions from shepherd (à la beekeeper O: journey into Brother’s heart, A agent-w/i experienced w/t Interior) whose blind daughter (living-i/t-world-tho-detached fem opposite) gives him sheep’s milk (à la monastery relief of Bride giving Jesus water, he entering both art + sensual land of milk + honey) + sees thru his cant + self-deception (stereotypical gift of in-sight he lacking); offered dinner by pagan yeomen (building wall civilization/personality delineating btwn natural, organic, elliptical pagan superstition + repressed, abstract, "straight" Christian super’n, A’s bullying of literate Brother earlier simultaneous disdain of science/logic which will in turn supersede him, Bush be damned) but refuses meat (flesh), visiting colliers (miners of psychic depths) telling of ½-naked stranger asking for horse (O now in Rotgier-role, he premonition of self met in ghostly isolation).

Finds him sleeping in field (nature-god à la Christ/Persephone, dormancy winter, Wolfenberg famine-stricken in his absence) but can't interest in "pilgrimage of penance" (no longer flagellating self: earth healing à la spring), instead joining swordplay (cross-suffering not kept to Christian selves) w/ yeomen-colliers on O’s slashing latter for horse (reacquiring body reuniting w/ renounced physical World) only 2B clobbered by him on stopping for drink (roles reversed from A’s fountain cruelty w/ lit-Bro, O no blind shepherd’s daughter either; sdtrk bees sting in "brother’s" tail); O returns to Castle Vikov (as ego to Self following excursion to deepest isolated unconscious) where father/Lord is dead (superego + God, embodiment of Order) + Lady Leonora invites him in (sexual availability permitting fulfillment of delayed oedipal stirrings) + to decidedly non-festive dinner (re-starting film/time) featuring, for him, 1st meat folk’ve eaten since dad’s death (not asceticism but deprivation: further return t/t flesh for interim fisheater), he spurning her hand à la Armin/shep’s dtr (latter not 2B touched because dream-immaterial).

Shown to garret (previously shuttered against martens, à la bees/hive: clear mind + barren womb) where given sword of father (ahem) who slept there (w/o wife, unconsummated marriage undeveloped sexuality depleting crops/stunting maturity) awaiting son’s return (wife now true Merciful Virgin he sent to serve) before she goes down to pray (for grain to prosper + well to remain pure: now fecundating element back); next morning O bathed at well by commoners (à la Jesus/Bride and he + Armin at seaside: re-born, into communal fem domain), tells Leonora courtyard (womb) "shd be full of children" as boy brings him wolf cub (1st of hunting-dog team à la beehive – controlling rather’n repressing instincts), then meets Fr Blasius (not-the-father living off castle grounds, as w/o body) by hives whose bees sense storm (soul intuiting coming crisis) + agrees to leave castle gates (mind) open to kids (fecundity + new ideas; vs unregenerate Order).

Horses + dogs arrive (clan fending for selves the healing psyche, using animal senses for more than killing Brothers) + girls rain petals on Leonora (fertility; cf O’s basket: sexual revulsion resolved, Self on path to recovery), whom O stops from self-flagellation (building up anima, resisting her advances taming own dogs); while they wait out rain (trial) in her "favorite spot" (vaginal moistening – where "someone has been," ahem), Armin (attracted by children’s procession à la opening O) pounds on Fr Blasius’s door (let into his sanctuary suggestion of homosexual equivalent to concurrent hetero activity) 2B told of famine + plague (Oedipal backdrop) in wake of king’s demise (resultant cannibalism isolated mind [as Order]’s feeding on limited storehouse on loss of Lord-consciousness), A arguing for people's extinction ("The angels will remain" truth 2B extracted from dream-life) + asking when O+L 2B married (fecundating union of heaven + earth [of which his cross symbol] he here to thwart, agent of psyche promoting oblivion of non-REM sleep).

Arrives at gate (threshold of awareness - issue 2B dealt w/ at similarly transitional moment) during wedding (swordless: came to say goodbye/be resolved) + invited in (ceremony integration of disparate elements - "Today Vikov Castle open to all"), where he drinks mead (breakdown of stern unconsciousness-disguised-as-rationality) + offers O bag of Holy Sand (vs O’s living gift to young Leonora) tainted w/ brother's blood (as flowers/bats, all he has to show from pilgrimage; cost, also, of Crusades/Christians’ soiling of sacred land/Christianity), which L+O sift thru fingers (impermanence of time/grudges [for them] – Christian attitude espoused by putative pagans) before O has him embrace bride (à la historic O/L; A’s previous refusal to look at her forcing self to recognize values/perspectives other than own); Lady awaits long-in-coming lover (famine w/i famine w/o), who turns out 2B Armin (slitting her throat separation, instead, of head/mind from body), who’s taken to courtyard (which shd’ve been "full of children"; Father B’s "Ecce Lucifer" denunciation of Light Bringer who wd halt utopian flow of dream un/consciousness) where he urges O to take up cape (bearing cross) + return to Order (from which it cdn’t be farther) before O unleashes dogs (A now reiterating Bro Rotgier; torn limb from limb O serving oblivion on agent of anarchy) + returns to seaside (line btwn un/consc’ss where we/he met A, straying horse leaving body while unconsummated soul yet not able to ascend – world still awaiting Christianity's reconciliation w/t Eternal Other).

An inspiration for Bertrand Tavernier’s similarly downbeat Middle Ages heretic-Christian Passion of Beatrice?