The kiss of the butterfly
The kiss of the butterfly (original title: Un baiser papillon ) is a French drama film directed by Karine Silla from 2011 about the fates and families of three women, played by Valeria Golino , Elsa Zylberstein and Cécile de France .
action
The restorer Billie, who lives in Paris, is terminally ill with cancer, which she has been hiding from her husband Louis and their daughters Manon and Fleur for several months. Because sooner or later she has to come out with the truth, after going to the cinema together, she decides to tell Louis about her illness. When she told him that she was terminally ill and only had a few months to live, Louis initially refused to admit it. Doctors could be wrong too. Louis, who is currently defending a man who has killed his wife as a lawyer, tries to spare Billie and to relieve her as much of the household as possible. When Louis finally inaugurates his two daughters Manon and Fleur, the family grows even closer.
Billie's friend, the actress Marie, who has known about Billie's condition for a long time and who always encourages her, is longing for a child. However, her doctor thinks that her chances of getting pregnant at 38 are slim, so she recommends artificial insemination . Her husband, Samuel, who is a few years her junior, is ready to try artificial insemination, but is increasingly irritated by her absolute desire to have a child. As the conductor of an orchestra, he already has enough on his mind. A concert is coming up, but his musicians, especially a young cellist, don't play passionately enough for him. After an argument with Samuel, Marie visits her mother in their hairdressing salon and angrily accuses her of having had a child aborted on her advice at the age of 20 and that she can no longer become pregnant. Artificial insemination also proves to be unsuccessful shortly afterwards.
Billie's nurse Alice has a completely different problem. Her little son Gabriel is afraid of sleeping alone in the dark, so she regularly wakes her up at night. Alice therefore seeks help from a psychiatrist. In addition, she is fed up with life in Paris, where she is almost run over by a ruthless driver and then verbally abused. She longs for her small hometown, which she once left to lead an exciting life in the big city. In the meantime, however, the daily routine has caught up with her in Paris, for which she blames her husband Raphaël. He always wants to go on vacation on the Île de Ré and do everything as he did as a child instead of trying something new, which is why her life in Paris is now much more limited than in her hometown. The psychiatrist meanwhile says that Alice's son Gabriel subconsciously senses her own fears - caring for terminally ill people is not easy - and that Gabriel cannot sleep in the dark and cannot cope with separations.
Louis' brother Paul, who was once in a relationship with Marie and has now returned to Paris after a long absence, sees the prostitute Nataliya - they have known each other for a long time - on the street one evening. Nataliya, who actually wanted to become a teacher, owes a lot to her pimp, who threatens to kill her son who lives in Ukraine if she does not raise the money. However, Paul, who has fallen in love with Nataliya, manages to earn the required amount while playing poker with the pimp and thus pay off Nataliya's debts.
Meanwhile, Billie is getting worse. Alice tries to encourage her and tells her about her own little miracle: Gabriel finally slept through the night. Billie tries hard to continue to be there for her daughters. Manon, who neglects school and hopes for a career as a singer, should concentrate on her graduation. Because Manon picked up her sister Fleur too late from ballet class and they both come home late, Louis reacts angrily one evening, but immediately apologizes to Manon. The situation is not easy for everyone. Louis, who no longer wants to defend his client, also learned at his mother Madeleine's birthday party that he and Paul do not have the same father. Paul had known it for a year and, at Madeleine's insistence, kept it to himself, which is why he distanced himself from his mother.
After all, Samuel's concert goes better than expected. Marie, sitting in the audience, realizes that Samuel is cheating on her with the cellist. When she accuses him of the affair on the way home and tells him to throw the cellist out of the orchestra, Samuel bursts his collar. He can no longer bear their relationship and leaves Marie alone by her car. In a bistro, Marie then gets into conversation with the son of the Arab owner. They have already met when the young man on the run from the police - he had set fire to several cars with his brothers - ended up behind the scenes of a theater where Marie was on stage. In the bistro's storage room, the two finally come closer. Marie then becomes pregnant. Alice, in turn, surprisingly lets her husband, who has no idea, go on vacation to the Île de Ré alone with Gabriel. Gabriel is calm when saying goodbye at the train station, and Alice leaves the platform satisfied but also thoughtful. Billie, who last restored a picture that connects her with her deceased parents and whom Fleur saw in the title role in a ballet performance of Little Red Riding Hood , dies in her bed. When Manon comes home after graduating from high school, she finds her father grieving at her dead mother's bed.
background
The film was the first and so far only directorial work by the Senegalese- French actress Karine Silla, who also wrote the script. Her husband, actor Vincent Perez , took on the role of Louis on her directorial debut. Their daughter Iman Perez can be seen in the film as Louis' and Billie's daughter Fleur. Fleur's older sister Manon was in turn played by Iman's half-sister Roxane Depardieu, who emerged from a relationship between Silla and Gérard Depardieu , who made a small guest appearance in the film as Manon's school principal.
The ensemble film , which had a budget of 6.09 million euros, was produced by the EuropaCorp production company owned by Silla's brother-in-law Luc Besson . The shooting took place from May to July 2010 in Paris. The film was shot in front of the Opéra Garnier , the Théâtre du Châtelet , the Théâtre Marigny, the Place de Catalogne, on the school grounds of the Lycée Jean-Baptiste-Say and in the Parisian entertainment district of Pigalle . The three main female characters Billie, Marie and Alice were - in contrast to the dark Pigalle scenes by Paul and Nataliya - mainly staged with their own color scheme: Billie in yellow (maternal), Marie in red (passionate) and Alice in blue (straight). Jean-Vincent Puzos acted as production designer . Olivier Bériot was responsible for the costume design.
The film music was composed by Angelo Badalamenti , who is best known for his many collaborations with David Lynch . In The Kiss of the Butterfly , Badalamenti's composition Laurens Walking from the David Lynch film A True Story - The Straight Story (1999) was used again in several places in Silla's film. The piece of music rehearsed by cellist Camille Thomas in the film is the Concerto in G minor for two cellos and orchestra (RV 531) by Antonio Vivaldi . The piece that Samuel rehearses with his orchestra in the film is Vivaldi's Concerto in G minor for violoncello and orchestra (RV 416). The ballet production of Little Red Riding Hood shown in the film is musically accompanied by the “Dance of the Hours” from the opera La Gioconda by Amilcare Ponchielli .
The Kiss of the Butterfly came to French cinemas on June 1, 2011, where the film drama turned out to be a big flop after a week with only 47,715 viewers. The theatrical release in Belgium followed on June 8, 2011 . In Germany, the film was first released on DVD on June 1, 2012.
Reviews
Le Journal du Dimanche found that the drama film is not lacking in charm but does not tell a new story. The situations of the characters and their dialogues are quite realistic, but the décor is so lavish that you sometimes have the feeling of “leafingthrough the Marie Claire for more beautiful living” than watching a film. However, the director staged her characters, especially the children, “with a warm eye”. According to Le Parisien , the film shines with its cast, especially Valeria Golino is "remarkable". In the end, however, he has neither depth nor lightness.
Le Monde stated that in her debut film Karine Silla depicts “a bourgeois Parisian milieu” that is “both dreamy and completely disembodied”. The script is "very school-like". There are feelings in abundance, an oppressive seriousness and "an avalanche of stereotypes about humility, wonder and the fragility of things". As a viewer, you get a meal that is “both too bland and too sweet”.
The lexicon of international film described Silla's directorial debut as "[m] itunter maudlin, but honestly meant concern cinema". The individual storylines are "cleverly interwoven". Together they would cast a “melodramatic look at three women’s fates in the big city”.
According to Alissa Simon from Variety , the ensemble film, which revolves around three households, is kept going by the “secrets and desires” of the female main characters and is bathed in a “comfortably warm” light. However, the script was a mess and came up with more and more storylines as it progressed. The characters are drawn “superficially”, which is not favored by Silla's directorial style, which only leads the actors to “indulgent” and “monotonous” performances, which is particularly evident in Valeria Golino's “brave but dragging process of death” and Elsa Zylberstein's “ egocentric theatrics “become clear. Occasionally the dialogues could at least show “a witty remark” and “some generally valid sentiment” which could possibly develop their effect on the viewer in the home theater better.
Awards
The film ran in 2011 at the Montreal World Film Festival in the international competition for first films for the Golden Zenith and ultimately received a special mention by the jury in this section. Vincent Perez and Karine Silla received the Capri Arts Award at the “Capri, Hollywood” festival.
German version
The German dubbed version was based on the dialog book by Henning Stegelmann .
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Billie | Valeria Golino | Claudia Urbschat-Mingues |
| Marie | Elsa Zylberstein | Claudia Lössl |
| Louis | Vincent Perez | Philipp Brammer |
| Paul | Jalil Lespert | Torben Liebrecht |
| Samuel | Nicolas Giraud | Alexander Brem |
| Alice | Cecile de France | Tanja Geke |
| Manon | Roxane Depardieu | Malika Bayerwaltes |
| Fleur | Iman Perez | Valeria Ceraolo |
| Raphael | Serge Hazanavicius | Matthias Klie |
| Madeleine | Edith Scob | Marion Hartmann |
| Marie's mother | Catherine Hiegel | Angelika Bender |
| Bistro owner Abdallah | Abdallah Moundy | Claus Brockmeyer |
| Psychiatrist | Laure Duthilleul | Marina Koehler |
| Headmaster | Gérard Depardieu | Manfred Lehmann |
Web links
- The Kiss of the butterfly in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The kiss of the butterfly on allocine.fr (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ The FSK evaluated the film in February 2012 under the title Kiss of the Butterfly , which the lexicon of international films and other sources also state. The film was ultimately released in Germany for the first time under the title The Kiss of the Butterfly .
- ↑ Release certificate for The Kiss of the Butterfly . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , February 2012 (PDF; test number: 131 757 V).
- ↑ a b c d Alissa Simon: A Butterfly Kiss . In: Variety , September 4, 2011.
- ↑ a b cf. jpbox-office.com
- ↑ a b cf. allocine.fr
- ^ “[M] as dans une telle débauche décorative qu'on a plus volunteers l'impression parfois de feuilleter Marie-Claire Maison que d'être au cinéma. Il ya cependant de la chaleur dans le regard que porte Karine Silla sur ses personnages, les enfants, notamment. " Carlos Gomez: Un baiser papillon . In: Le Journal du Dimanche , May 31, 2011.
- ↑ “Valeria Golino y est remarquable.” See “Un baiser papillon”: dispersé * . In: Le Parisien , June 1, 2011.
- ^ “La réalisatrice […] dépeint un milieu bourgeois parisien à la fois fantasmé et totalement désincarné. Le scénario, très scolaire, […]. Des bons sentiments à la pelle, un esprit de sérieux accablant, et une avalanche de clichés sur la pudeur, les miracles, la fragilité des choses. […] Et l'on en sort avec l'impression d'avoir mangé un plat à la fois trop fade et trop sucré. " Isabelle Regnier: “Un baiser papillon”: un mélo trop lisse . In: Le Monde , May 31, 2011.
- ↑ The kiss of the butterfly. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 29, 2020 .
- ^ “The Paris-set seriocomic ensembler centers on three households where the secrets and desires of the distaff characters keep the narrative wheels creakily spinning and the overall tone warm and fuzzy. […] In keeping with the superficial characters […], Silla Perez's helming style encourages indulgent one-note thesping, typified by Golino's brave but dragged-out process of dying […] and Zylberstein's self-involved theatricality. On the plus side, the dialogue occasionally contains a witty zinger along with some universally recognized sentiments. " Alissa Simon: A Butterfly Kiss . In: Variety , September 4, 2011.
- ↑ The kiss of the butterfly. In: synchronkartei.de. German synchronous index , accessed on June 29, 2020 .