DVD Review: Black Butterflies

DVD Reviews, Reviews

Black Butterflies is a bio-pic about South African poet Ingrid Jonker. From watching this film it is obvious that Jonker was a very interesting person who led an interesting life. Yet somehow, this film is very uninteresting.

Set during Apartheid, Jonker (Carice Van Houten) was a poet who was very vocal about what was going on in her country. This was, of course, something that was frowned upon by most people, including her father, Abraham (Rutger Hauer), who was Minister of Censorship in the government and vocal racist.

The film follows the last few years of Jonker’s life as she leaves her husband has a couple affairs, including with author Jack Cope (Liam Cunningham), and becomes more and more vocal against Apartheid. She also becomes more and more crazy. She even winds up in a sanitarium for a little while. (Why is it that so many famous women poets are crazy?)

Butterflies is well shot and looks good. Also, the acting is very solid. No stand out performances but no stinkers either. Van Houten and Cunningham both give fine performances but never quite build the chemistry that there characters should have. Somehow this film is a real dude. These seemingly interesting things are happening on the screen but you can’t bring yourself to care about any of them. What should be a very vibrate, emotional film, is told in a very distant and cold fashion.

Going into Black Butterflies I’d never heard of Ingrid Jonker. The film was good enough to make interested in her, but not nearly good enough to give a strong feeling about who she really was.

The film is presented in a 2.35:1 widescreen format and 2.0 Dolby Digital stereo. It’s a solid looking film and sounds fine too. Nothing to complain about on this aspect of the film.

Interview with director Paula van der Oest and Carice van Houten: (5 min.) These are okay interviews. They certainly won’t make you like the film more.

The thing that drew me to this film was Rutger Hauer as I am a huge fan. After watching the film I can see why he chose the role, it is an interesting one, however, it wasn’t enough to make Black Butterflies that much more enjoyable. Ingrid Jonker was obviously a very important person and deserves a better film than this to tell her story.

Tribeca Film presents Black Butterflies. Written by Greg Latter. Directed by: Paula van der Oest. Starring: Carice van Houten, Liam Cunningham and Rutger Hauer. Running time: 96 minutes. Rating: Not Rated. Released: July, 17 2012.Available at Amazon.com.

Mike Noyes received his Masters Degree in Film from the Academy of Art University, San Francisco. A few of his short films can be viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/user/mikebnoyes. He recently published his first novel which you can buy here: https://www.amazon.com/Seven-Days-Years-Mike-Noyes-ebook/dp/B07D48NT6B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1528774538&sr=8-1&keywords=seven+days+seven+years