Der Flug des Schmetterlings

This is the most touching movie I have seen in a long time. It takes a different look on the theme of "terminal" disease. It mainly shows how the parents (mostly the father) cope with the fact that their daughter doesn't have that much time on this earth, subsequently they don't have much time with her. The movie however doesn't concentrate on the girl herself. In fact she is ignorant of what is driving her parents to change their attitude towards her and each other. She's happy of course as it brings her parents back together (emotionally at least), but her character remains in the background as we see her father trying not to think of what's to come and make her as happy as he can even for a little while and her mother coming out of her initial denial.

Films about children dying are very tricky ones. All too often they ended up being much too sentimental and melodramatic. Two films that avoided this pitfall are "Tonio" (2016, Paula van der Oest) and "Le petit prince a dit" (1992, Christine Pascal).

Tonio dies in a traffic accident at the beginning of the film. Little Violette in "Le petit prince a dit" is about to die due to a brain tumor at the end of the film. More important is the different effects that the (impending) death of their child has on the parents. In "Le petit prince a dit" the marriage of the parents of Violette is effectively over at the beginning of the film but their sorrow (and the manipulations of Violette herself) brings them together again. In "Tonio" on the other side the proces of mourning forms a danger for their marriage.

When the father of Violette learns that his daughter is incurably ill, he lterally graps her from the treatment table. This touches the question of quantity of life (lifespan) versus quality of life, but transforms the movie also in a roadmovie. This roadmovie reaches an almost metaphysical peak on the mountains between Switzerland and Italy.

Especially in the second half of the film the music is very beautiful. IMDB did not mention a soundtrack, so it took some effort to find out that te music was written by Bruno Coulais.

The end, when the sleeping Violette becomes ever more overexposed and so slowly fades away, is touching.

This movie presents a week in the lives of a mother, father and little girl who is diagnosed as having inoperable glioma. The script is intelligent and avoids sentimentality. The acting is very good. The direction is excellent. The movie is just about perfect in every way.

But who wants to see a movie on this subject? I recommend the movie to anyone who enjoys having the 24-hour flu.