The movies' time-honored old-man-and-boy theme has rarely been used to such great advantage.
Butterfly(La lengua de las mariposas)
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Spain · 1999
Rated R · 1h 36m
Director José Luis Cuerda
Starring Fernando Fernán Gómez, Manuel Lozano, Uxía Blanco, Gonzalo Uriarte
Genre Drama
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This coming-of-age historical drama centers on Moncho, a seven-year-old boy living in Western Spain in 1936. Against the backdrop of political turmoil, Moncho learns about the world from his inspiring teacher Don Gregorio and enjoys life in the village, until the looming Spanish Civil War threatens his happiness.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
Baltimore Sun by Chris Kaltenbach
A movie of unforced nobility and quiet pleasures, Butterfly works on all sorts of levels.
The New York Times by Dana Stevens
Delicate, quietly devastating.
In the end, Butterfly is an infuriating film because it's so very contrived, so annoyingly phony.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
A beautiful, harrowing film of understated power and perception that affords Fernando Fernán Gómez, the Spanish cinema's great, weathered veteran, yet another of his unforgettable performances.
Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector
Some delicately interwoven and unresolved subplots help make the young character's rite of passage wholly, disturbingly compelling.
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Diverges to become something quite powerfully unnerving and guilt-ridden.
TV Guide Magazine by Maitland McDonagh
Though beautifully photographed, acted and written (the three source stories are skillfully blended into a single narrative), this leisurely, bittersweet look at a child's loss of innocence ends rather abruptly and inconclusively.
Austin Chronicle by Marjorie Baumgarten
It's a rare film that can make us look so deeply into the dark soul of the seemingly benign.
A savory cocktail with a bitter twist.
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