A twisted review of Spanish movie La Lengua de Las Mariposas — and an introduction 101 to Taiwanese politics from MY OWN POV
I am currently exchanging as an undergrad for a semester in ESADE business school (located in Barcelona). There is this course that I take, Never Too Many Movies, taught by prof. Alex Fernandez de Castro Krings, in which we are introduced to various movies on Spanish/Latin society/politics/etc., as well as instructed to hand in a review/opinion after viewing each week’s movie.
The topic and content of this week’s movie, La Lengua de Las Mariposas (Butterfly’s Tongue), has been haunting me for days since the ending credits rolled out. I have probably gone over top by writing a review like this (and as well pissed off all those friends from a particularly powerful neighboring country, cough cough), but I hope y’all could give this a read and think about the situation in YOUR country as well if you got the time.
Thanks a ton in advance, critical criticisms duly welcomed.
(Source: Wiki)
Butterfly’s Tongue or Butterfly (Spanish: La lengua de las mariposas, literally it can also be translated as “The Tongue of the Butterflies”), is a 1999 Spanish film directed by José Luis Cuerda. The film centers on Moncho (Manuel Lozano) and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio (Fernando Fernán Gómez), who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho’s ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho’s personal growth and daily life.
The film is adapted from three short stories from the book Que me queres, amor? by Galician author Manuel Rivas. The short stories are “A lingua das bolboretas”, “Un saxo na néboa”, and “Carmiña”.
The film received some critical acclaim. It was nominated for the 2000 Goya Award for Best Picture, and it won the Goya Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. Butterfly’s Tongue also has a 96% rating on RottenTomatoes.com.
I have always loved to watch movies but lack the self-discipline to sit down in front of my laptop or the TV and watch a full-length movie properly, so since I stopped relying on my parents and started to make my own money, I have been paying visits to the theatre that plays a lot of artsy movies in Taipei, which really exposed me to a lot of non-American/blockbuster movies. Of all those I have watched, I really like the production of European movies, mostly due to the fact that, as Alex had mentioned in class, they tend to be funded by various government entities, therefore they are able to pay more attention to details such as sound, music, composition and colour; also most actors are less familiar to me, so I can focus better on how they portray the story, follow the pace and everything.
La Lengua de Las Mariposas is the first Spanish movie that actually intentionally deals with historic and political issues I have ever watched, and I like the way that it does not put too much of an obvious emphasis on those (unlike most Mandarin movies I have watched), but instead lets the story play out predominantly through Moncho, the little boy’s POV. While our world evolves around the innocent Moncho, who does not need to worry about those “adult things”, other socially-related issues and events are actually happening in the background when Moncho is experiencing his first year of school life like a butterfly out of its cocoon.
I am going to leave out my take on either the technical aspect or the storyline aspect in my review, as I am sure my classmates must have done those, and did them much better than me, but instead focus on the strongest aftertaste this movie has left me, bitter and salty, burning and stings a bit on my tongue.
I am from Taiwan, a country that has a lot of complicated political issues going on in the background of our lives whether we, the common citizens, like it or not. The majority of Taiwanese public has learned to be politically apathetic nowadays — partly due to the implement of martial law for 38 years until it came to and end in 1987, during which the people could not utter a syllable of disrespect against the government and the ruling party, thus leading to the middle-age generation (which consists of most of the population in Taiwan) learning to “shut up and don’t interfere” where politics is concerned — but also because the politic situation in Taiwan and how we feel about our national identity can not be explained in simple terms, therefore some feel like no matter what we feel or how we act cannot untangle this mess, nor can we find a elegant solution out of this without causing a lot of damage, while others simply could not find time to keep up with, or do not have enough background knowledge to fully comprehend, our current political situation, no matter internally or globally. Of course, there is also the issue of incompetent politicians holding power, and the chaotic nature of how politics work is enough to put most people off politics. At least in my observation.
However the elephant in the room does not exist out of nowhere, just as, BLOOPERS AHEAD, the heartbroken and haunted look on his face as young Moncho has no choice but to yell,
“¡Rojos!, ¡Asesinos!, ¡Anarquista!”
while chasing after the truck filled with Republicans, one of them his favourite teacher, and throwing rocks,
“¡Tilonorrinco! ¡Espiritrompa (the butterfly’s tongue)!”
He probably had never imagined that the “boring politics” that adults are always talking about would haunt his carefree life one day.
Our life, especially as Taiwanese, is saturated with politics. This is not an opinion, but a statement of truth. I agree that life must carry on even if life-threatening events are imminent, as seen in the current political situation faced by Hong Kong, however I also believe that these kind of information should be made aware to the general public, to be colloquially comprehensible, and as a democratic country, only with an aware public can we make wiser choices for our future together.
