IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES

MOVIE REVIEW

IN THE TIME OF THE BUTTERFLIES

I found this on my never-ending search of satellite listings, and the findings must have been scarce for me to look at the info on this title. Salma Hayek and Marc Anthony? Sure, I'll tape that.

And I'm glad I did. The movie is based on the lives of the Mirabal sisters, Dominican revolutionary activists, who opposed the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo and were assassinated in 1960.

The cast, from what I could make of it, was completely Hispanic. The question here is, who in the world made the poor decision to have the entire film shot in english, forcing the actors to have a spanish accent? An incredibly dumb decision in my opinion, it should have all been done in spanish with english subtitles.

Hayek plays the main character, a girl in a large family on a farm who wants to move on and get a proper education. Her boyfriend, Marc Anthony, is an activist who knows of the atrocities being committed by the brutal dictator's regime. Through the surreptitious help of her underground comrades she becomes a icon for their struggles.

The cinematography is beautiful, the settings are very reminiscent of what old Cuba once was: colonial architecture in the city, jungle and simplistic farms in the countryside.

Be warned, the conflict is often violent and very sad but doesn't even start to touch on the depth of the murderous ways of Trujillo, who was assassinated in 1961.

It's worth a watch. IMDB says it was made for television, Salma picked up two awards for the gig. Being a MOW (Movie of the Week) explains why it was shot in english, rather unfortunate. In spanish, with some script tweaking, this could have gone on to better things.

Check out this LINK for more on the film.