A true independent feature with strong local roots, Butterflies Have No Memories is a tragic account of what happens when your foothold is removed without any prior warning. The film narrates an account of the struggling economy on a Philippine island after a goldmine has been withdrawn from the land, leaving people without jobs, stature and money. Man Ferding, the erstwhile security chief of the goldmine slowly decays within his dreams (that the goldmine will be back again) and his alcohol, with two other friends, Santos and Willy, also looking for meaning in an unforgiving world and trying to somehow make it through poverty and the looming emptiness of the future. Diaz raises pertinent questions regarding what easy money does to people & their attitudes and what tolls industrialization takes on the environment, and in that attempt, effectively dissects the anguishes of a surrogate economy, where foreigners come in, exploit, pollute and then leave the land worthless, not leaving it fit enough for the indigenous people to survive off it. It is then that things go awry, as Martha, the daughter of an ex-director of the mine returns from Canada, and creates ripples in all who meet her. She is a disproportionate piece in the entire setting, and it is marvelous how Diaz captures the various reactions that people throw at her, ranging from jealousy, hatred, fervent love to indifference, painting the gamut of Philippine psyche and nature in one stroke. The closing of the movie had the most impact on me, and at that precise sequence, the unfortunate saga that Diaz wanted to sketch emerges at its most transparent and raw, and probably makes us realize the folly of all that has come to pass. Great concepts executed with some palpable indie verve. Intriguing watch.
2 Reviews
A Nice Intro to Diaz If You Haven't Been Baptized
zacknabo30 September 2016
Warning: Spoilers
Diaz again slows life down to life's speed. It is deliberately and well paced focusing in on the decimated economy of the provincial Philippines and a handful of the residents that is stuck in a post-industrial malaise. For a low budget short Diaz works well asserting and exploring his themes of poverty and the desperate actions that this poverty can create. The low-fi monochromatic black and white seems to work in perfect concert with the gritty, seemingly simple tale. Diaz—though deceptively here—as always has fused the mundane with the semi-surreal, and has created a fine work sprinkled with symbols and a subtle etiological observation. The characters are fully fleshed out in a short amount of time, mainly due to Diaz's terse, incisive writing and in the way he slowly develops each scene never letting a scene linger too long, as he may do from time to time in his long feature films. The only knock one could come up with would be the cheap sound equipment and the poor acting; the dialogue is awkward and stilted to say the least, particularly the English speaking bits. But again it is Diaz's choice of a local cast to tell a local story that tends to gloss over the terrible voice acting. As always Diaz's camera illuminates his content with his demanding still shots, meticulously placed details in the background and foreground, and the realness of textures which highlight the moral decay and general disenchantment with life of this close-knit hamlet.
The story begins in a café where Mang Ferding and a friend discuss the tribulations of unemployment in their town and the country; a scene in which the audience is slowly clued in on the fact that years earlier a gold mine that employed many people simply took with they could and then cut and ran leaving economic devastation in the wake. Mang Ferding was a security chief of the mine, but now spends most of his time drinking rum with his friends Santos and the much younger Willy. What seems a slice of life film simply lamenting the economic status of the country soon turns into much more as Martha, a light-skinned English speaking girl living in Canada, comes back to visit her birthplace and where she spent the first nine years of her life. The trouble is Martha is the daughter of the ex-director of the mine, who cut bait years earlier, and whom nobody has forgotten; possibly because of the contamination of the local water supply. The short film does allude to the caustic effects of mining in Marinduque, where in 1996 mine tailings destroyed the Boac River in which the company after decades of business picked up and hauled ass. Martha is an intelligent, attractive girl that causes various waves of emotions and reactions throughout the small town. Some are attracted to her, some jealous and for others a bitter hatred. Two of the best scenes are when Martha tries to reconnect with her childhood friend Carol. Carol is struggling with three children. Her disdain toward the beautiful, wealthy, single Martha is palpable and the tone of the very brusque conversations are ripe with tension that is pitch-perfect and a microcosm of the town's issues with Martha as well as the town's issue with itself. But Martha is a symbol, a symbol of brutal western industrialization, progress, everything that the people of this town have missed out on. Drinking one night Ferding hatches a plan to kidnap Martha and hold her for ransom. Santos agrees to go along but Willy has doubts as he grew up with Martha. The imposing Ferding doesn't give Willy a choice and the three men set out through the bush toting guns and donning Moriones mask; these cartoonish Roman soldier masks helps give the end of the film a dreamlike quality. In the final scene the three men silently trek through the woods, the camera hangs in ethereal surveillance, when they run into a swarm of butterflies which sends Willy to the ground vomiting and crying as the two other men look on in disappointment and annoyance at Willy's change of heart; because what else can they do, go back home and drink rum?
The story begins in a café where Mang Ferding and a friend discuss the tribulations of unemployment in their town and the country; a scene in which the audience is slowly clued in on the fact that years earlier a gold mine that employed many people simply took with they could and then cut and ran leaving economic devastation in the wake. Mang Ferding was a security chief of the mine, but now spends most of his time drinking rum with his friends Santos and the much younger Willy. What seems a slice of life film simply lamenting the economic status of the country soon turns into much more as Martha, a light-skinned English speaking girl living in Canada, comes back to visit her birthplace and where she spent the first nine years of her life. The trouble is Martha is the daughter of the ex-director of the mine, who cut bait years earlier, and whom nobody has forgotten; possibly because of the contamination of the local water supply. The short film does allude to the caustic effects of mining in Marinduque, where in 1996 mine tailings destroyed the Boac River in which the company after decades of business picked up and hauled ass. Martha is an intelligent, attractive girl that causes various waves of emotions and reactions throughout the small town. Some are attracted to her, some jealous and for others a bitter hatred. Two of the best scenes are when Martha tries to reconnect with her childhood friend Carol. Carol is struggling with three children. Her disdain toward the beautiful, wealthy, single Martha is palpable and the tone of the very brusque conversations are ripe with tension that is pitch-perfect and a microcosm of the town's issues with Martha as well as the town's issue with itself. But Martha is a symbol, a symbol of brutal western industrialization, progress, everything that the people of this town have missed out on. Drinking one night Ferding hatches a plan to kidnap Martha and hold her for ransom. Santos agrees to go along but Willy has doubts as he grew up with Martha. The imposing Ferding doesn't give Willy a choice and the three men set out through the bush toting guns and donning Moriones mask; these cartoonish Roman soldier masks helps give the end of the film a dreamlike quality. In the final scene the three men silently trek through the woods, the camera hangs in ethereal surveillance, when they run into a swarm of butterflies which sends Willy to the ground vomiting and crying as the two other men look on in disappointment and annoyance at Willy's change of heart; because what else can they do, go back home and drink rum?
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