I wrote it a few years ago, and now I have read the blog, and I have a new understanding of the Second Republic. I think it is doubtful to blindly link the pure ideas such as democracy and freedom with the Republic.
The film "Butterfly's Tongue" is adapted from the most famous collection of short stories by contemporary Spanish author Manuel Rivas[1] "Butterfly's Tongue" (originally called "My dear, what do you want me to do?"), by The three stories are composed of the book's most famous short story "Butterfly's Tongue" and the other two "Sachs in the Mist" and "Kaminia". Each of the three stories in the book is independent. The first two stories happened in 1935-1936 and 1949. The third story does not indicate the time of occurrence. In the movie, according to the adaptation, the saxophone protagonist Andrés in the second story becomes the brother of the protagonist Monjo in "Butterfly's Tongue", while Carminia in the third story turns into a Mongolian The illegitimate daughter of Joe's father. In the film, the latter two stories are used as an aid and integrated into the main drama "Butterfly's Tongue", making the film story very full and beautiful.
The film "Butterfly's Tongue" mainly tells the story of Monjo, a sensitive and timid boy suffering from asthma in a small town in Galicia before the Franco fascist forces seized power in Spain, at the age of 8 years old to go to school, even the night before Fearing that the teacher would beat someone, I couldn't fall asleep worriedly. When he entered the classroom for the first time, he was at a loss when he was faced with the teasing and teasing of his classmates. He urinated his pants in public and ran away from school. Moncho's teacher Gregory came to apologize and told Moncho that he never beat students. The gentle and kind teacher gradually helped Mengqiao get rid of his inferiority complex and slowly played with his classmates. In spring, teachers often take students to learn knowledge from nature and guide them to love life and remain curious. Through learning, Monjo learned that butterflies also have tongues, and the name of the film comes from this. And Mengqiao's brother is a saxophone player. In a performance in a neighboring town, his brother was ignited by a Chinese dumb girl and unconsciously played high-pitched and moving music for the first time. It's a pity that this young girl has married the mayor of a neighboring town as his wife, and her brother's first love has just started to end. In the end, the Spanish Civil War broke out. When Franco’s army occupied the town, people were surprised to find that the last progressive person who stepped out of the cell was the teacher who was loved by the people of the town. In order to protect herself, Mengqiao's mother first asked her husband to scold the teacher, and his father blushed after scolding the teacher. Mom asked Moncho to scold again. Meng Qiao looked at the teacher who was still wearing the clothes made by the tailor's father. For some reason, he began to shout loudly: "Atheist, Red Devils, Red Devils." Finally, when the car drove away, Meng Qiao and a group of The child chased up, picked up the stone, threw it at the teacher fiercely, shouted the two words the teacher taught him, and sent the teacher away with knowledge.
The film selects the material with Moncho as the main character, and uses the perspective of different characters in the film and their symbolic meaning to show Franco's attack on Spanish society and show the history of the subversion of the Second Spanish Republic.
The first half of the film shows the beauty and innocence of school life, and tells the gentle treatment that children receive when they have just entered the stage of enlightenment. From fearing the school (worrying the teacher hitting the students) to turning into doubts (the teacher came to apologize) to trusting the teacher (the teacher rejected Jose’s father’s “no useless” discipline), Monjo’s attitude towards the teacher mirrors Monjo (ie adolescents) Attitudes towards the Spanish Republic and even democracy. The teacher himself is a progressive person. In the film, he represents the Second Republic of Spain and the democracy it brings. The father of the student Jose is a representative of the right-wing forces, and is against his teacher. Since Meng Qiao trusted the teacher, Meng Qiao has continuously accepted the knowledge taught by the teacher and sowed the seeds of democracy with the teacher. There are a few examples worth mentioning, the analysis is as follows:
First, the teacher asked in class: "A rooster lay its egg on the border between France and Spain. Whom does it belong to?" A child got up and said, "Spain". The teacher asked why? The children replied: "Because we are more fierce." The children laughed. At this time, Moncho replied that the rooster would not lay eggs. Here, because of his trust in the teacher, Meng Qiao becomes a representative who has just bathed in progressive thinking. The metaphor is that the right-wing group is fighting for the desired result like a male egg. There is no unreasonableness. But just for such an unreasonable result, the right-wing forces unreasonably divided the borders and regions to wage a brutal struggle.
Second, Monjoe went home and told his mother what he had learned today—potatoes and corn came from America. My mother was unbelievable and asked, "What did we (referring to the Spanish) eat before?" As a devout Christian, my mother represented a large part of Spanish society at that time. The world doesn't know much, it's a group of ordinary people who are very closed.
The third is the dialogue between the teacher, Moncho, Jose's father and the priest. Jose's father pointed out that Mengcho was originally going to be an altar assistant, but after going to school, he lost interest in altar ceremonies and so on. Finally, the teacher used Latin to say freedom to inspire the soul. This paragraph is actually a clear symbol before the left-wing right-wing force confrontation. Jose's father and priest are representatives of the right-wing forces, while the teacher and Moncho stand in the ranks of the left-wing republican government. It symbolizes that the conflict is difficult to resolve and will eventually erupt. It metaphors that the main reason for the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War was due to the countless social contradictions in Spain at that time , the most prominent of which was the dissatisfaction of the old military and religious people with government reforms, which led to mutual accusations and confrontations towards armed struggle .
Fourth, Mengqiao went home and talked to his brother about race. He talked about the teacher telling him that although there are people of different races in the world, everyone is the same. This paragraph alludes to the dictatorship of the German Nazi Party at that time. In 1933, the Nazi German government deprived all Jewish civil servants from their posts, and removed from the army, the police, and the judiciary those Jewish members who were considered inferior. It was passed in 1935. The history of the " Nuremberg Act " depriving Jews of their basic rights as German nationals. In the film, the teacher and Mengqiao, as left-wing progressives and advocates of freedom and democracy, reject racial discrimination and racial persecution.
The above four cases all appeared in the first half of the film, representing that the democratic ideas of the Spanish Republic before the Spanish Civil War were sprouting and growing, and the liberal democracy advocated by the left was in conflict with the vested interests of the right.
The story of Moncho’s brother Andrés and Moncho’s half-sister Carminia, as a supplement, aims to enrich the theme of the story, symbolizing the tragic ending of the Spanish Republic and the subversion of freedom and democracy. Brother Mengqiao played a tune with vitality and soul for the Chinese girl he liked for the first time, but at the moment when the vitality began to flourish, he learned that the Chinese girl had long been married to the mayor of a neighboring town. This juvenile love that just started but stopped abruptly symbolizes the fate of the Spanish Republic—April 14, 1931—It only existed for only eight years in 1939. Freedom and democracy are like that saxophone, which disappears as soon as they become vigorous; the story of Moncho’s half-sister, Carminia, is rather bizarre and gives a feeling of being abandoned. According to the author, there are two interpretations. First, Kalminia’s dog was finally killed by her frustrated ex-boyfriend. It can be understood that the right-wing forces are unwilling to endure the loss of profits and launch an offensive to the left, which is another metaphor for the outbreak of the civil war. Second, Carminia is the illegal illegitimate daughter of Moncho's father, a symbol of right-wing forces, and represents that the illegal right-wing Franco regime will eventually be destroyed like her dog.
The style of the second half of the film is changed, sweeping away the freshness and beauty in front of it, and the white horror envelopes the big screen. Muncho’s father hid in the house and did not go out and burned the left-wing newspaper, while his mother nervously warned Muncho to remember that his father never gave a gift to the teacher. After that, the mayor, Monjo’s father, and the members of Monjo’s brother band walked out of the cell one by one. Monjo’s mother tensed Monjo’s father to insult the prisoners, while Jose’s father was watching them in the distance. From this scene, it can be seen that the Moncho family should have had conversations with Jose's father before. They are traitors to the Republic, and they can be safe and separate from the progressive people they interact with. This also metaphors one of the reasons for the destruction of the Spanish Republic-traitors appeared within the government of the Republic.
When the last prisoner came out, everyone was surprised to recognize that this was Moncho's favorite teacher. Mengqiao’s mother told Mengqiao to scold the teacher Red Devils. The teacher’s eyes were mixed with understanding and disappointment, while in Mengqiao’s eyes were the child's almost desperate confusion. As a result, when the car drove away, Mengqiao caught up with him, picked up the stone, and threw it at the teacher, yelling the two most impressive words the teacher had taught him. This can’t help but raise questions. Finally, when Moncho grows up, will the knowledge taught to him by the teacher and the seeds of democracy sprout again? The final two words symbolize the legacy of the Republic. Is the wind gone, or will the president keep in mind? And this determines the future of Spain.
Perhaps as the teacher said in his retirement speech, "If we let a generation of children, just one generation, grow up freely in Spain, then no one can take their freedom again. No one can steal them and take this wealth!" Maybe It is also the sprout of this long-existing idea of freedom and democracy that allowed Spain to complete an extremely successful democratic transition in a short period of time, making Spain a modern country with a parliamentary monarchy and a constitutional monarchy.
Marquez once said, "The film adapted from "Butterfly's Tongue" is a perfect marriage of literature and film. A great film." In fact, it is true. But in addition to the perfect marriage of literature and film, it is also a perfect combination of film and history. It uses an unconventional story line, a multi-layered perspective, and two full plot lines to show the difficult and costly process of sowing the seeds of freedom and democracy before the Spanish Civil War. It also uses the film itself to create In order to achieve a new height in the combination of film and history, it is appropriate.
To sum up, the author believes that taking the film "Butterfly's Tongue" as an example, the film is not only the seventh art with the same reputation as architecture, music, painting, sculpture, poetry and dance, but also a carrier of human culture. It is to look back on the past and grasp Now, imagine the way of expression in the future. The historical film "Butterfly's Tongue" is an excellent masterpiece that aims to reflect history from a specific perspective through specific materials and to provoke people's thinking, enduring for a long time.
[1] Born in 1957 in the province of Coraluna, Galicia, Spain, he is one of the most important contemporary Spanish writers. Rivas wrote many poems, novels, and essays, and won many literary awards. The first novel to win important awards was "A Million Cows" published in 1989, which won the Spanish Galician Literary Criticism Award; later there were "Carpenter's Pencil" (2001) and "Seriously Burnt Books" (2006). ) To receive the award.
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