Swallowtail Butterfly kırlangıç kuyluklu kelebek 1996
After a young girl's mother dies, she is cared for by Glico, a brassy hooker, who gives the girl the name "Ageha" (Butterfly). Ageha goes to work for a collection of oddballs who run a junkyard and salvage business.
Once upon a time, when the yen was the most powerful force in the world, the city overflowed with immigrants, like a gold rush boom town. They came in search of yen, snatching up yen. And the immigrants called the city Yentown. But the Japanese hated that name. So they referred to those yen thieves as Yentowns. It's a bit puzzling, but "Yentown" meant both the city and the outcasts. If they worked hard, earned a pocketful of yen, and returned home, they were rich men. It sounds like a fairy tale, but it was a paradise of yen, "Yentown". And this is the story of Yentowns in Yentown.
IMDB 7.4/10 (1,773 votes)
Suwarôteiru - Japan (original title)
Swallowtail - Japan (English title)
Swallowtail & Butterfly - Hong Kong (English title)
Simply Brilliant. One of my favorite films of all time. Incredible sociopolitical backdrop, incredible array of characters, incredible diversity of situations, styles, nuances. I love and adore this film from the gut to the heart to the mind. On every level it hits a nerve, and my only regret is that this hefty piece of work isn't longer still because the characters get so far under your skin and burrowed into your soul that when the credits roll you feel as though the vacation has come to an end and you're bidding your friends farewell.
I'd seen the name Swallowtail Butterfly mentioned in quite a few places, always favourably. I either didn't know or couldn't remember the slightest thing about it, but decided to pick it up on an expensive whim.
Director Shunji Iwai has done a few movies that don't seem to get seen much in the west, but always draw praise when they do. I will certainly be looking out for his work in future, if Swallowtail Butterfly is a good representation of his talent.
Since I didn't know anything about the movie, and enjoyed it that way, I won't reveal too much. The main background to which the movie is set is the "Yentown". This is either the name that immigrant workers gave to the Japanese city to which they came looking for money, or the name given by the Japanese that rejected them to that class of people. It is also the name of the band that Shunji Iwai recruited for the movie, and the original name of the movie itself in Japan, just to make matters more confusing :)
At the start of the movie we see the corpse of a Chinese Yentown being handed over to the authorities. The other Yentown deny knowing her, and the 16 year old girl looking mournful particularly denies that she might have been her mother. This is untrue, but if nobody claims the body then the state will provide a funeral that her friends and relatives could not afford. The prospect of looking after the girl does not appeal to her mothers friends, so she is handed on from person to person until a prostitute called Glico finally takes pity on her.
The movie expands from this point in gradually widening circles, paced with a precision that would make King Hu proud. It's impossible to place the movie in one genre, but social-realism, coming of age drama, rockumentary and crime thriller all fit one part or another of the 2.5 hour running time. The whole movie is shot on hand-held cameras, sometimes in a dizzying documentary style, sometimes in a tense thriller style, sometimes in a gentle dream-like way. The use of filters and lighting, and a nice grainy film stock, all ensure that it looks wonderful throughout. The soundtrack is similarly wonderful from start to finish - both the orchestral background music of Takeshi Kobayashi and the flat out rock n' roll of The Yentown Band and their wonderful singer Chara (the new love of my life I think!).
The different tones of the movie that follow the shift in genre and the sometimes radical changes of scale that the narrative takes in are all blended skillfully, provoking a wide range of emotional responses. The performances are all excellent, and the characters very interesting and well defined.
In essence, this is basically a masterful film that shows extraodinary skill from Shunji Iwai as a director. Watching it is a reminder of just how far from the potential of the medium most movies fall. I look forward to following his career, wherever it might take him. It's such a shame that a movie that is such a work of art will probably be seen by a tiny audience in the USA, whilst brain-dead Hollywood "blockbusters" pack multiplexes in every town. I guess at least most people will never know what they're missing.
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DVDRip XviD 02:27:52 1,40 Gb
Crime, Drama 4 wins & 8 nominations Japan
Crime, Drama 4 wins & 8 nominations Japan
After a young girl's mother dies, she is cared for by Glico, a brassy hooker, who gives the girl the name "Ageha" (Butterfly). Ageha goes to work for a collection of oddballs who run a junkyard and salvage business.
Once upon a time, when the yen was the most powerful force in the world, the city overflowed with immigrants, like a gold rush boom town. They came in search of yen, snatching up yen. And the immigrants called the city Yentown. But the Japanese hated that name. So they referred to those yen thieves as Yentowns. It's a bit puzzling, but "Yentown" meant both the city and the outcasts. If they worked hard, earned a pocketful of yen, and returned home, they were rich men. It sounds like a fairy tale, but it was a paradise of yen, "Yentown". And this is the story of Yentowns in Yentown.
IMDB 7.4/10 (1,773 votes)
Suwarôteiru - Japan (original title)
Swallowtail - Japan (English title)
Swallowtail & Butterfly - Hong Kong (English title)
Simply Brilliant. One of my favorite films of all time. Incredible sociopolitical backdrop, incredible array of characters, incredible diversity of situations, styles, nuances. I love and adore this film from the gut to the heart to the mind. On every level it hits a nerve, and my only regret is that this hefty piece of work isn't longer still because the characters get so far under your skin and burrowed into your soul that when the credits roll you feel as though the vacation has come to an end and you're bidding your friends farewell.
IMDB Reviewer
Director Shunji Iwai has done a few movies that don't seem to get seen much in the west, but always draw praise when they do. I will certainly be looking out for his work in future, if Swallowtail Butterfly is a good representation of his talent.
Since I didn't know anything about the movie, and enjoyed it that way, I won't reveal too much. The main background to which the movie is set is the "Yentown". This is either the name that immigrant workers gave to the Japanese city to which they came looking for money, or the name given by the Japanese that rejected them to that class of people. It is also the name of the band that Shunji Iwai recruited for the movie, and the original name of the movie itself in Japan, just to make matters more confusing :)
At the start of the movie we see the corpse of a Chinese Yentown being handed over to the authorities. The other Yentown deny knowing her, and the 16 year old girl looking mournful particularly denies that she might have been her mother. This is untrue, but if nobody claims the body then the state will provide a funeral that her friends and relatives could not afford. The prospect of looking after the girl does not appeal to her mothers friends, so she is handed on from person to person until a prostitute called Glico finally takes pity on her.
The movie expands from this point in gradually widening circles, paced with a precision that would make King Hu proud. It's impossible to place the movie in one genre, but social-realism, coming of age drama, rockumentary and crime thriller all fit one part or another of the 2.5 hour running time. The whole movie is shot on hand-held cameras, sometimes in a dizzying documentary style, sometimes in a tense thriller style, sometimes in a gentle dream-like way. The use of filters and lighting, and a nice grainy film stock, all ensure that it looks wonderful throughout. The soundtrack is similarly wonderful from start to finish - both the orchestral background music of Takeshi Kobayashi and the flat out rock n' roll of The Yentown Band and their wonderful singer Chara (the new love of my life I think!).
The different tones of the movie that follow the shift in genre and the sometimes radical changes of scale that the narrative takes in are all blended skillfully, provoking a wide range of emotional responses. The performances are all excellent, and the characters very interesting and well defined.
In essence, this is basically a masterful film that shows extraodinary skill from Shunji Iwai as a director. Watching it is a reminder of just how far from the potential of the medium most movies fall. I look forward to following his career, wherever it might take him. It's such a shame that a movie that is such a work of art will probably be seen by a tiny audience in the USA, whilst brain-dead Hollywood "blockbusters" pack multiplexes in every town. I guess at least most people will never know what they're missing.
Simon Booth, imdb.com
http://www.filesonic.com/file/113793051/swallowtail.butterfly.1996.AH.part2.rar
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