Review of M. Butterfly (1993) by Sam C — 18 Jul 2009

M. Butterfly is quite possibly David Cronenberg's most under-appreciated film (with the exception of Fast Company as I have yet to see it). This may be due to the fact that M. Butterfly is a radical departure from the fleshy mutations one associates with Cronenberg; no New Flesh here. Instead he delivers a quaint little art film that is inspired from a beautiful true story set during the cultural revolution in 1960's China. I'm going to skip over the plot synopsis in fear of giving away the ending.

Fuck . . . I can't really talk about this film without giving away major plot points, so reader beware! Aside from Jeremy Irons' stoic voice the real draw here is John Lone's acting, as he portrays a female actress that Jeremy Irons falls for. There's a great but of dialogue in the film where John Lone is talking to a comrade, and he asks her why men always play the parts of women in Chinese plays. This theme is relevant throughout the entire course of the film since Lone is portraying a female and actually manages to fool his audience, the audience being Irons.

And then there is the Madame Butterfly play. This play tells the tragic story of an Asian woman falling for a Western man, and once he leaves the female is in such woe that she commits suicide. Cronenberg handles this with delicate care, as Lone is obviously the Asian woman falling for the Western Irons, but their roles start to switch once Irons moves back to France. Soon enough he is the male playing the female role in this abstract idea of the play, and thus his fate is sealed, as we see during his play in the prison. M. Butterfly is not something that one would expect from Cronenberg, but it goes to show that the man can make quality films outside of his horror stigma. A recurring theme throughout Cronenberg's body of work is the theme of change, whether it's physical (like the fleshy mutations of Videodrome) or mental (like Viggo Mortensen's character in A History of Violence, where he mentally erases his violent past and becomes a new person). The usual suspects are also here: Howard Shore providing a beautiful musical score, Ronald Sanders weaving each frame together with grace, and Peter Suschitzky, who has photographed Cronenberg's films since Dead Ringers. All in all, M. Butterfly is an exceptionally well-made film that everyone should check out regardless what you think of Cronenberg.