Mariposa

I saw this film at the Berlinale 2015, as part of the Panorama section. Could have been a nice idea, just waiting to be implemented by an enterprising director. But alas, it failed in my eyes, mostly because of missing interesting characters doing interesting things. We saw beautiful youngsters, indeed very many of them, all being candidates for the ideal son or daughter in law, at least having the looks for being considered as such by your daughter or son. But they were seemingly only occupied with flirting, partying, gossiping, and observing each others progress in relationships. They had nothing otherwise interesting on their hands, which could have served as a vehicle to tell us more about what made them tick.

Though prepared by the synopsis on the festival website, I found it impossible to keep the respective two story lines apart. I learned later from the final Q&A with the film makers, that one of the stories was dramatic by design, and the other one was intended as a comedy. Alas, I could not have deduced that from the screening. As a result, I was confused from beginning to end.

In hindsight, said synopsis contained ample warning signs, by predicting that we had to deal with a flexible number of protagonists who were to continuously form shifting relationships. We were not given any sort of clue why one relationship seems to flourish for a shorter or longer period, while others ended without probable cause. Nevertheless, I stayed put until the end including the Q&A with the film makers, being left without any resolution why I had problems with this film. I theorize that it has everything to do with leaving us in the dark about psychology and motives of the protagonists. It reduces them to abstract entities, merely being black boxes, whose behavior cannot be predicted but just comes about without rational reasons other than hormones and looks.