M. Butterfly

Of all the David Cronenberg movies I have seen 'M. Butterfly' is my least favourite, but that's certainly not to say that it is entirely worthless. Despite some flaws and a few dead spots it is still quite a fascinating film. One of the oddest things about this movie is that despite its general feeling of unbelievability it is based on a true story. Cronenberg adds to this by deliberately casting the rather butch John Lone, rather than a more obviously androgynous actor (ala 'The Crying Game', a movie this is often compared to). This makes the story more confronting and less comfortable, and also one assumes, closer to the actual facts of the case. Jeremy Irons, who was robbed of an Oscar in Cronenberg's previous 'Dead Ringers', is outstanding as usual, Lone (still mainly known for 'The Last Emperor') isn't as good, but still fine, and the supporting cast includes a nice turn from Brit veteran Ian Richardson ('Dark City'). Most Cronenberg fans will probably find this a bit difficult to get into, as the material isn't exactly typical of the director, but it's much better than its bad press makes out. I expected to hate it, and I didn't.

Jeremy Irons plays the lead role as French diplomat, Phillipe Bouriscot, who falls in love with an absolutely seductive Chinese woman opera singer (John Lone). As Irons pursues the diva he's attracted to, she toys with his foreign ignorance of the cultural differences between their Western & Eastern societies.

In a sense, she keeps the diplomat at a distance for 18 years while their affair continues by becoming his teacher of cultural difference. The romantic & erotic chemistry between the diplomat & opera singer is a very famous true story written by David Henry Hwang--"Madame Butterfly." There have been numerous stage & screen renditions of the story.

I like this (1994) version best because David Cronenberg is undoubtedly the finest director to deal with the most important topic in the story: gender bending. "M. Butterfly" is the Canadian Cronenberg's first Hollywood funded debut. The surprise plot of the sorted true love story is one of espionage. An adults only film, it is one of intrigue, sizzling romance, twists & turns, deception & betrayal.

Jeremy Irons has specialised for many years in playing characters who build up a world of their own, and then have the world fall to pieces around them; who destroy themselves internally. This is the key characteristic for his parts in Damage, Cronenberg's Dead Ringers, Lolita (of course) and M. Butterfly. In this movie, however, it slightly misses the true impact of such events Irons has exhibited so well in those other parts, mainly because the final "revelation" actually doesn't happen until after Gallimard's world has already collapsed, with Butterfly's arrest (by the Red Guard, as an artist and thus a criminal) and his own recall to Paris. But he doesn't find out the truth about his Butterfly until the court case, where Irons is unable to react - he has to react without reacting, so to speak, and he just sits there looking as if he'd just bitten into a thistle. Were I to write the screenplay, I would have changed some of the order of events. It is not important to the movie that Gallimard learn of the true nature of his lover in the court room, so I would have that revelation earlier, thus completing the cycle of destruction we have seen in his life, and also avoiding that impossible ride in the police van near the end of the film. (First of all, it is impossible that two co-defendants in an espionage case would be transported together, secondly it is impossible that they be alone without a guard in the back, and thirdly it is quite impossible that the guards in the front of the van would not have noticed that one of the prisoners has taken off all his clothes!) Certain other elements also detracted from the movie. It does not do an avowedly art house film any good to Hollywood-ise things up by having Chinese people talk to Chinese people in heavily accented English.

And in the end, what was achieved? This case, as is pointed out in the film, was a national joke in France. Presumably Hwang didn't give the case the comedy treatment because he saw something deeper, something to learn about human nature. But in fact we learn very little about human nature that wasn't already obvious - the idea of subsuming one's whole being to an image of perfection; the inability to love the creator of an image if one has loved the image and discovered it to be nothing. All this is too obvious. Some merit might have been retrieved if it could be shown that Gallimard was intentionally deceiving himself, but that is clearly not the case.

An "ordinary" movie from David Cronenberg transpires to be almost too ordinary.

I've been searching for this film for a while. Having seen Videodrome, The Fly and Naked Lunch, I knew that Cronenberg was capable of making compelling, disturbing, horrific pieces which resonated in a dark, menacing way; staying with you via their visceral imagery and twisted ambiance. Having seen Dead Ringers, Spider and A Dangerous Method, I knew that Cronenberg also had another side to his work. A more restrained, mature, refined yet no less affecting style which, at its best, achieved a great level of tension without the visceral gore of his aforementioned works.

What I hadn't seen was M Butterfly. The almost unmentioned work which takes Cronenberg's more mature approach to filmmaking and fulfils his promise by giving him a jewel in what is an extremely impressive crown. I greatly enjoyed the movies I mentioned in the previous paragraph but even the best ones I felt were lacking something for me to be able to say they were a masterpiece. Perhaps they felt a little convoluted, gratuitously gory, or perhaps at times distant and even lifeless in some of his later works. But M Butterfly is none of these things; well some may say its plot is convoluted but, strangely enough, it's heavily based on a true story, or rather it's based on a novel which is based on a true story.

What M Butterfly has, which many of Cronenberg's other films lack, to varying degrees, is relatability and empathy. Pure, unadulterated empathy. It presents its characters not as good or bad; it's not interested in judging or condemning; it is a film which desires to take you deep into the world of an enchanted and tortured man: Rene Gallimard. It wishes to show you his most intimate passions and desires, his triumph, his awakening, his desperation and his suffering. It wishes to explore his self- realisation, his moments of greatest happiness and it wishes to show us his ultimate tragedy.

This is a film which echoes with symbolism. Its structure is tight, its performances, by the two leads, are heartbreakingly sublime. It is influenced by opera, by Hitchcockian psychological, twisted romance, think Vertigo. Its story opens and unfolds like a delicate rose which eventually must wilt and die. This is poetry, this is humanism. This is the most accomplished and meaningful work I've seen in a long time.

If you are even slightly tempted to investigate this then know that, despite its lack of recognition and a number of poor reviews, this film had the power to tantalise and haunt, in equal measure, at least one audience member. I was taken on a journey which I intimately understood only too profoundly. Perhaps it will mean something significant to you too.

This is David Cronenburg's best, based on a true story as bizarre and compelling as his other bizarre and compelling stories. John Lone is wondrous and Jeremy Irons is his usual cold, repressed upper class self. Perfect casting for a provocative director filming a moving story of love and loss.