Butterfly Movie Themes

The movie Butterfly, is a 1999 drama film directed by Jose Luis Cuerda. In the opening clip, the story takes place in a small town in Galicia, northwestern Spain in the year of 1936 during Spain’s second republic and right before the outbreak of the Spanish civil war. Throughout the film, there are many themes that were introduced such as childhood, loss of innocence, freedom and liberty. One of the biggest themes introduced is childhood which is then abruptly changed with the fragile situation of the Spanish civil war. We are introduced to this theme in the opening clip when Moncho is afraid of going to school because he has heard that teachers hit the children. However, when he finally gets to school, he finds out that this is not the case,

In the opening clip of the movie, we see that they are all very nice and friendly to their friends and to the teacher Don Gregorio, but towards the end they became arrogant. As the fascists take control of the town, they round up republicans. Since Moncho’s fathers is a republican, the family goes to the town square to yell hateful things at the republicans in order to protect themselves and to prevent Ramon from being taken away also. This scene shows how to development of their characters changed from the beginning to the end from being friendly to arrogant due to the onset of the Spanish civil war. In the last scene we see Don Gregorio and other known republicans being taken away and Moncho running towards the truck throwing rocks and yelling hateful things, although the last things he yells is “proboscis” which was his favorite word that Don Gregorio taught him in order to let him know that he doesn’t mean any of the words that he is yelling. I think that this last scene is significant because it shows the power of conformity being that the family of Moncho betrays their friends in order to be accepted in society and to protect their