BUTTERFLY

(HUDIE)

San Francisco Premiere

Hong Kong 2004 | 124mins | 35mm Color | Cantonese w/E.S.

Yan Yan Makās tenderly erotic film takes a now-familiar story÷a womanās attempt to acknowledge her lesbian desire despite cultural and familial disapproval÷and adds another layer: a countryās journey towards independence. The ćbutterflyä of the filmās title refers not only to the heroineās awakening, but to Hong Kong itself, which is both backdrop and character in the story.

Flavia is a 30-year-old schoolteacher, wife and mother, living a comfortable middle-class existence in post-handover Hong Kong. When she meets Yip, a passionate and free-spirited singer, she is sexually drawn to her but realizes that her desire could result in losing her own child. Flaviaās ambivalent relationship with Yip is intercut with flashbacks to her high school and college years during the late Ī80s, when she was involved with Jin, a lesbian civil rights activist. At those times, the two women were involved in the student democracy movement, and the dissolution of their relationship occurred against the violent backdrop of the bloodshed in Tiananmen Square.

While the two parallel plots, each filled with lesbian desire and melodrama, provide plenty of captivating, sensuous scenes between the beautiful actresses, the filmās subtle references to historic events brings home the point that sexuality is always a political act.

÷Eve Oishi