The Butterfly (Le
Papillon)
Picture: B-
Sound: B- Extras: C Film: B-
Children’s films used to be automatically considered a
market of no importance and often the product was plastic and pointless. There have been films that have surfaced now
and then that were exceptional, but not as many as you would expect as the
market geared towards kids has wildly expanded since the 1980s, and not always
for the better. With writer/director
Philippe Muyl’s The Butterfly (2002), I did not know what to expect, a
film about an older guy with a little girl centered on the title species. The worst that could have been would be a
silly sappy film that is so cutesy you want to play Frisbee with the DVD. Instead, the film was surprisingly charming
and often hilarious!
Michel Serrault is one of France’s most enduring actors,
from his early work in the original Diabolique and King of Hearts,
to recent triumphs like Nelly & M. Arnaud (reviewed elsewhere on
this site), here is an unsung hero of the acting craft. In this film, he plays long-time butterfly
collector Julien, who has an exceptional knowledge on the subject (you can
spend your whole life on the subject and still not know everything), and still
goes chasing after them day and night.
Suddenly, he is confronted by 8-year-old Elsa (Claire Bouanich), whose
mother (Nade Dieu) has “lost track” of her.
Despite being annoyed at first, Julien takes her in and then brings her
on one of his outdoor butterfly hunts.
Often, if a film was done like this, it would be too safe
for its own good and boring. Elsa is
slightly precocious, but not in some sickening know-it-all way that you would
find in the thankfully dying U.S. TV situation comedy. Note how in the 1980s most of your smart
aleck kids sounded like they were ready to pull off a huge white collar crime
on Wall Street as if it were the proper attitude to have. Elsa is a real 8-year-old, especially by
comparison.
Serrault then pulls off a very clever thing in his
performance. Instead of the
stereotypically annoyed, gruff old man in “ornery overdrive” that would make
him into a cartoon, he only subtly offers his annoyance with the intelligence
of a man who would pursue such a hobby all his life. The resulting combination of the two results in some of the biggest
laughs I have ever had out of a film from this cycle and Muyl’s guidance
further sharpens the comic timing and well-placed observations. The only thing I could complain about is
that the film only runs 80 minutes, and there were probably more laughs to be
had in this situation, but all the adjectives the critics are quoted on the DVD
case over are true for a change.
Instead of picking up a thesaurus, I will keep my adjectives to myself
and strongly recommend a film that even adults will not be able to turn away
from.
The letterboxed image is surprisingly sharp, clean and
clear for a non-anamorphic 1.85 X 1 transfer, though it still has some detail
trouble. Nicolas Herdt’s cinematography
is terrific and never ceases to deliver the natural world in a narrative
context, as well as livable one. The
subtitles are on the print. The French
language sound was issued in theaters in DTS and Dolby Digital, but the mix on
this DVD is only a good Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo with healthy Pro Logic
surrounds. This is not a big problem,
but I have a feeling I would have been laughing harder, even if I do not speak
French, if this had DTS on it. Nicolas
Errera’s score is nicely done and still sounds good here. That is a solid combination for performance
presentation of the film, but boy, do I want to see this in a theater in 35mm!
Extras include a trailer for this film, four more for
other First Run titles, a stills gallery and biography information on Serrault
and Muyl. That too is fine, but I think
this film could become an all-time children’s classic, even though it has
enough edge to throw off some parents. The
Butterfly deserves to soar like no other children’s film I have seen in
years, but adults should catch it too because it is one of the best comedies in
years, no matter what your age.
- Nicholas Sheffo
