Madam Butterfly

In Pjotr Sapegin’s Madama Butterfly he recreates the Opera of the same name. The video uses stop motion to tell the story of a woman who falls in love with a man and has a child with him and then has the child taken away from her. After this she falls into despair and tears herself apart. A plethora of feelings and emotions are told in this short film and all without the use of dialogue. The characters used were dolls with wire frames.

            The woman in this story started off living alone, she fell in love with a soldier who came to her land and they had a child together. She gave birth to a daughter and loved her and waited for the man she fell in love with to come back. Her and her daughter lived everyday in bliss until the day he returned. She expected to be greeted with happiness and love and instead he takes away her daughter and leaves Madam Butterfly for another woman alone in a car full of other children he’s taken from other women. After he leaves Madam Butterfly falls into despair and tears herself apart in the dark.

            The visuals used to create Madama Butterfly by Pjotr Sapegin were strong. The film did an amazing job of creating environment through character attachment and representation. An example of such representation is the cord attaching Madam Butterfly to her daughter to symbolize the importance of the child to her life and their close connection. Another example is while the daughter was flying like a kite, this represented the height of their happiness and how they felt weightless from joy. The Sailor returning decimated all of that in an instant and drove Madam Butterfly into a downward spiral resulting in her tearing herself apart. The film was is sad, but beautiful.