On a recent visit to Tomales Point Elk Preserve in Point Reyes National Seashore, where I had taken my Toronto cousin for the afternoon, I rounded a curve on our way out of the park, when a 10-point elk appeared before us just a few yards from the road.  He was magnificent — tan, chocolate and beige coat gleaming in the late afternoon sun, his stunning set of antlers forming a breathtaking sight against the backdrop of a perfectly blue sky. For a fleeting moment I thought I had stepped into the setting of the new British flick “The Queen.”

In that superb film by Stephen Frears about the days in the royals’ lives following the death of Princess Diana, the queen’s husband, Prince Philip, takes Diana and Charles’ two sons, William and Harry, “stalking” in the Balmoral estate in Scotland.  A 14-point elk has been spotted on the property, and Prince Philip thinks that going after that rare creature will keep the boys’ minds off the death of their mother.

“It’s been a long time since we’ve had a 14-pointer on the estate,” remarks Prince Philip.

As I hastily assembled my telephoto lens and camera, I was seized with a profound sense of joy that this marvelous creature before me was safe from stalkers.

At that instant, I understood that the significance of the 14-point elk in the film. 

It was a metaphor for Princess Diana. 

Metaphors are a direct comparison between a known and an unknown object. The known object is equated to an unknown one. 

In “The Queen,” Frears seems to be equating the 14-point elk to Diana to reveal how we humans seem compelled to view rare and beautiful creatures more for their trophy value than for their worth as living, breathing creatures that enrich our lives and inspire our imaginations. 

With this new sense of understanding, I revisited the film. 

The opening scenes of “The Queen” take place in Paris in front of the Ritz hotel. A pack of motorcycle photographers are parked near a black Mercedes, their engines revving as they await the exit of Princess Diana and her lover. The scene suggests a pack of jackals awaiting its chance to get at the cornered prey. 

When the couple appears, the motorcycle engines rev to a deafening howl. We all know what happens next. The Mercedes roars off, motorcycle jackals in hot pursuit. The hunted and the hunters streak into the tunnel under the River Seine; the speeding Mercedes crashes into a pillar. The beautiful princess is mortally injured. 

Further on in the film, newly-elected Prime Minister Tony Blair has been on the phone urging the queen to acknowledge the massive outpouring of grief for Diana.

Having at last accepted his point, the queen sets out from Balmoral castle to find the stalking party on a remote part of the estate. On her way, her vehicle stalls out in the middle of a stream she is crossing. While she awaits rescue, the magnificent elk her husband has been stalking appears in the meadow nearby.

The queen, brilliantly portrayed by Dame Helen Mirren, is awestruck by this breathtakingly beautiful creature that has suddenly appeared before her eyes. She is enchanted by its magnificence and regal beauty. “Oh!” she exclaims. “You are beautiful.”

Then she hears the approach of the stalking party. “Shoo, go away, run,” she says to the elk. “Go, get away,” she urgently whispers to it.

The elk lifts its curious head to look at her, but does not move. 

By the time the stalking party appears, the elk has disappeared. An enigmatic and slightly wicked little smile flickers across the queen’s face. 

The next morning, as they are preparing to fly back to London, she asks Philip if he is going stalking again. “No,” he replies, “we’ll have to wait until another stag turns up.” The queen looks questioningly at him. “The 14-pointer strayed on a neighbor’s estate, and a commercial hunter got him last evening.”

Before hopping the plane back to London, the queen pays a visit to the owner of the estate that caters to rich trophy-hunting businessmen. Slightly taken aback by her strange request, he shows her into the small building where hangs the magnificent but now dead and beheaded elk. 

Pain flickers in her eyes and across her face like a shadow as she views the wondrous creature now hanging by its heels over a drain grill, which is stained with its blood. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” remarks the proud owner of the estate.

“Yes, beautiful,” replies the queen, her voice flat and without emotion.

She then walks over to the severed head, with its magnificent 14-points antlers. She notices a bullet wound in its cheek, which she tenderly caresses. “It was wounded,” she says.

“Yes,” he acknowledges.  “I don’t know how that happened. We had the gentleman all lined up. Some of our people had to stalk him for several miles to finish him off.”

The queen is silent for a few minutes. “I just hope it didn’t suffer,” she says, then thanks the gentleman for the viewing, asks him to convey her “congratulations” to the wealthy banker who got the trophy head and antlers, and departs.

Back at Buckingham, the queen pays a visit to the massive collection of flowers that have been laid at the gate to the palace.  Picking up one card, she reads,  “You were too good for them.” Another reads,  “Your blood is on their hands.”

Immediately, my mind flashed back to the dead elk hanging by its heels, its blood staining the grate beneath it, and the queen tenderly touching the bullet wound in its dead cheek. Was the elk’s blood on the queen’s hands? Was Diana’s blood also on her hands? 

Metaphor — comparison by equating the known (The elk’s suffering and death) to the unknown (Diana’s suffering and death). 

Mirren’s eyes exquisitely portray the hurt that the queen feels upon reading these cards, in almost the same way her eyes registered pain upon seeing the dead elk and the bullet wound in its cheek.

The elk as a metaphor for Princess Diana asks us to consider why we stalk to the point of destroying those whom we most love and admire, and who give hope and dignity to our lives. As one of Diana’s grieving fans said during a TV interview, “She gave so much to us; why couldn’t we have given something back to her? Why couldn’t we have left her alone?”

The film seems to ask the same question concerning the magnificent elk.  It gives us so much in the way of beauty and the grandeur of nature. Why can’t we just leave it alone, to live and give us joy in its living beauty?

Seeming not to be able to get close enough to these exceptional creatures in life, to grasp their mystery for ourselves, we stalk them until death, and then, only then, the film suggests, when we have hung them by their heels are we able to say, “How beautiful.”

Yet the film doesn’t specifically pass judgement on the hunters, the queen, nor the paparazzi. Neither Diana nor the elk lived in a protected environment, safe from the trophy hunters. And in both cases, the ones who collect the trophies, whether the head of the elk or the million-dollar photo, win society’s approbation and congratulations.

Rather, Frears seems to be inviting us to consider how fragile beauty is, and that we must appreciate it, give something back to it, and even protect it to the best of our ability while we can. The queen appreciated her few moments with the magnificent elk; England loved and appreciated the lovely, vibrant Princess Diana. 

Yet inevitably, the very elements that found them so attractive destroyed both.

At the end, life and business of the nation as conducted by the queen and Blair does go on, more wisely, perhaps — perhaps not but with two beautiful creatures less to give us joy and inspire our imaginations.

Napa resident Rhoda Stewart is a professor emeritus of English with a special interest in critical thinking about literature and film and film adaptation of literature.