The Basque film director, Juanma Bajo Ulloa, is a difficult person to come to terms with. Doubly so, as I have had the bad luck of seeing his films in reverse order. After a hilarious but rather senseless `Airbag' (qv), I was greatly attracted by the sombre, almost poetic `La Madre Muerta' (qv), and finally have managed to see `Alas de Mariposa', mostly because my attention fell on Silvia Munt as lead actress. The fact that Fernando Valverde is playing opposite her, also helped. What I did not expect is that both girls playing the younger Amy (Laura Vaquero) and the adolescent Amy (Susana García), would steal the show from them. With intelligent patience, especially with Laura Vaquero, Bajo Ulloa achieves some memorable scenes.
Greatly aided by some extremely delicate photography playing with natural light so as to achieve a `claro-oscuro' result which is almost as if it were filmed in black and white. Bingen Mendizábal's dark music lends itself appropriately to the film's development, being almost textural in its sombreness.
For the story is grim: a harsh tragedy, at times verging on brutal pathos.
Footnotes:
1) For Spanish learners this film should not be too difficult as the dialogues are fairly easy to follow as the accents are neutral, though there are some softly-spoken parts at times.
2) In no way should under 18s be allowed to watch this film. I hate to be a censor, but the content of this film makes such a statement rather obligatory. If it were simply a case of explicit sex-scenes there aren't any I would say nothing.
