Pardon me if anyone's already asked and answered this question, but: isn't little Ana's vision of Frankenstein at the end brought on by eating mushrooms? When the doctor says, She's had a traumatic experience, but she'll get over it in time, does he merely mean Ana's first time staying up all night outside or does he mean her first dose of hallucinogens? Couldn't Ana's behaviour throughout the last part of the film be explained by she was shrooming hard?
shareI think _you're_ on shrooms. :)
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I should warn you -- he's a Fourierist.
Ana is never shown eating the mushroom, so...
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I think it is strongly suggested that she has eaten the mushroom. The imagery is very hallucinatory.
shareYeah, it's silly to think that she's "trippin". We see her look and then touch the mushroom and then the scene cuts to a rather ominous image. If you remember she couldn't really identify the different mushrooms so it's logical to assume that she couldn't tell the difference but was just hungry enough to take the risk. I'll look at this scene a little differently now.
shareI took it where she most certainly ate the 'shroom.
I was more curious how she ended up in the middle of nowhere. I can assume she probably hallucinated the lake, but there wasn't a tree in site where the dog found her.
And as any parent will tell you, little girls with little legs can't really walk that far.
One of the extras on the Criterion DVD showed some of the locations. There really was a small river (maybe 12 feet wide) with a couple irregular rows of trees on each side.
Although her walking was limited, I suspect she could go much farther than we now expect in the U.S. True, her father told her the mountain with the Chanterelle mushrooms was "too far", that she'd never make it; but that was many miles and quite a bit of elevation rise. Just the trek from the hillside to the abandoned building -which we saw the girls undertaking in stages over time- was probably a half mile or a mile. And throughout the film she made that trek repeatedly.
As to what surrounded the old castle wall, we only briefly get a clear view in the direction the searchers are coming from. And in other long views we've seen the land has lots of small hills and valleys -it's not "flat as a pancake"- which in my experience hiking can easily completely hide trees and rivers a half mile away.
Ana never eats the mushroom or she'd have died BUT she was shown stroking the cap of the mushroom. It didn't occur to me at the time, but now that you mention it, perhaps the film insinuates that her vision of Frankenstein was induced by the slight hallucinogenic effect of absorbing a bit of the toxin through the skin -- that, combined with her child's imagination.
shareOr maybe she did eat it, and that particular mushroom wasn't as dangerous as she'd been led to believe. I could be wrong, though. I don't know my 'shrooms that intimately :)
Kel
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Professional [?] on closed course. Do not attempt
I think the mushroom was a 'red haring' employed to circumnavigate ideas that the censors would find objectionable...i.e "Ana has had a traumatic experience". Well the traumatic experience was the killing of her friend and the fact that she believes her father was somehow responsible. This perceived reality has sent her psyche spinning out of control thus creating a perceived (by the adults) catatonic state. As for her vision of the monster being brought on by hallucinogenics, I don't buy that at all, it seems somehow out of place with the overall tone and subject matter of the film...it's not a 'head' movie.
sharethe possibility that Ana ate a hallucinogenic mushroom does not make this a "head" movie. mianda72 i suggest you study some other cultures than your own, the effect of natural hallucinogens is prevalent throughout history in many cultures, myths and stories.
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mianda72, if the vision of the monster was not created by the hallucinogenic effect of the mushroom Ana ingested, then how do you think she sees Frankenstein? Does she fall asleep and dreams it? Why does it happen after the scene when she contemplates the mushroom?
Here is a link to the bodily and mental effects one can have when eating a mushroom: http://www.smoke-nut.com/dictionary/psychedelic-mushrooms-(shrooms)/
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Ana had already
-seen the film and been hugely impressed by it
-been led by her sister's teasing to think Frankenstein was real
-been led to believe not seeing him was a problem of "he doesn't know you" rather than "he's not real"
-tried to look at the sun so long she went blind
-woke herself up in the middle of the night and went outside and communed with the moon
-imagined her sister as a black shadowy ghost
-had her teacher intimate that what looked like a mannequin was a real person with a name
I think she could have "seen Frankenstein" without hallucinogenic help.
I think you´ve nailed it metamorphmusis. See the message Classic-ForeignFilmLover posted above with a link to a sight that explains the hallucinogenic effects of ingesting or absorbing a bit of a psychedelic mushroom, which does not necessarily have to be toxic.
shareAna never eats the mushroom or she'd have diedHer father told her the mushroom would cause death. And her father told her he'd never actually tried it, but was just passing on what his grandfather told him. Not exactly the most reliable source.
According to the translation on the Criterion DVD, the doctor doesn't say Ana had a "traumatic" experience. He says she is under the effect of a powerful experience.
1. She's checking out a mushroom
2. She sees a monster
3. The doctor says she's under the effect of a powerful experience, but is certain she'll be just fine.
All signs point to Ana eating the mushroom and getting high.
Touching psychedelic mushrooms isn't the way to get high, but then eating mushrooms wouldn't produce a vivid hallucination of a monster, so the realism aspect is out the window, and we just need to accept the scene for what it is, without being overly analytical.
With some mushrooms just touching it and licking your fingers (or sucking your thumb) can bring on a hallucination. The toxicity can be that strong. Also, i noticed that in the vision she is near a stream similar to the girl in the scene in Frankenstein. When the search party finds her she is sleeping near some ruins, no where near any stream. It could be she just wandered, but more likely the stream, the scene, and the monster were the product of the shroom. It could also be a dream, but then why show the mushroom in the first place, and then why have the doctor talk about a powerful experience?
shareI think this rather ambiguous and symbolic film fits poorly with either/or type explanations.
Ana's vision could have been 'imagination' and 'out all night' and 'hallucinogenic'.