Except at this place and this time. The village, a microcosm of all of Spain, is divided. The landed gentry, the Church and the fascists line up on one side. Director Jose Luis Cuerda plays this tension out in an understated, even muted way. Until the soul-wrenching end of the story, the action is very intimate and personal.
Nuances count for everything.
We are brought deep inside the emotional landscape of the villagers so that, when things go so terribly wrong, the tragedy is intense and inescapable. In that sense, Butterfly, which was adapted by screenwriter Rafael Azcona from a collection of short stories by Manuel Rivas, is a universal story even though it is exactingly specific. The struggle it chronicles so carefully is easily transported to other real-life dramas where people are forced by peers to take a position for or against others in their community. This Butterfly does not just flutter away. En Francais Fernando Fernan Gomez stars in 'Butterfly'.