Review of M. Butterfly by Cronenberg

This was one of the weirdest movies I have seen. The entire movie the audience is led to believe that the opera singer is a woman until, at the end she is actually a he. I watched this movie primarily because Jeremy Irons and John Lone were in it. I'm a big fan of Jeremy Irons and have been since I watched Bertolucci's Stealing Beauty. I also have a deep appreciation for Lone. I am a big fan of The Last Emperor which was also by Bertolucci and stands as Lone's crowning achievement. I thought that both actors took risks in doing such a strange film. Lone plays the transvestite. And Irons plays a French diplomat that is all too naively used as an informant for the Chinese government.

The story is based on a true story. Apparently, hard to believe as it is, the French diplomat had no idea that the opera singer was a man. Throughout all of their close encounters, he still had no idea she was he. It is really hard to believe, but it's the truth. So, you would think that the film, which was based on a play, would be intriguing, interesting, and full of ideas about gender, sexuality as well as relations between the East and West, Caucasian and Asian. It is, but those ideas only come about, mostly at the end, when the diplomat is revealed to be an arrogant imperialist.

For it all it's intellectual ideas it wasn't that great of a film. It does take risks. It does try to viscerally affect the audience by bringing them into the historical times in which the movie is set in like the Cultural Revolution, Maoist China, and the 1968 student protests. But all of these events are too briefly depicted on the screen and they seem to have little affect on any of the actors. I would have like to see more of the affects of the tumultuous times on the players

This film reminded me in several ways of Farewell My Concubine. Both were released in the late 80s and early 90s. Both deal with Beijing Opera singers. And, yes, both deal with characters who are queer. The fact that both films deal with characters who are not straight was a positive development. Both films, along with other films, like My Own Private Idaho, give audiences a glimpse into what it's like to be queer, to lack power, to be expendable, to be used as in the case of M. Butterfly.

Although it doesn't have the historical breadth that Last Emperor had or the emotional visceralness of Farewell My Concubine, it is a good piece of Cinema. I just think there were too many elipses of time throught the film. Perhaps there could have been more substance. Yet, the end of the film is very good. I was thoroughly weirded out when Jeremy Irons dresses in drag, performs a scene from Madama Butterlfy, then commits suicide in a prison.

For me, the most lasting question was about relations between Imperialist powers, like France, and those who suffered from Imperialism, like China. It made me re-think how I interact with Asian women. It made me question how I view them or want them to be. Do I, like Irons' character, expect them to be submissive? Do I really feel some sort of superiority over Asians because of the history of Imperialism? I think these are questions that should be studied by Asian historians and others.