M. Butterfly

Last night I watched David Cronenberg's M. Butterfly with Jeremy Irons.

It's a very unusual story, about a French diplomat in China who falls in love with an enigmatic Chinese opera singer. He first sees her performing excerpts from Madame Butterfly, and the themes of that opera, as well as the music, pervade the movie.

It is a story of sexual obsession and Jeremy Iron's enslavement to his "slave" (as she calls her self), Butterfly.

It is complicated by the fact that his "Butterfly" is a communist spy, and, even worse, is really a man. The extent of his belief in their romance and passion was such that he never realized, or let himself realize, that he was with a man (he never saw her naked, and she performed all the sexual services in their relationship).

After years of being together he learns the truth and is imprisoned as a traitor. He is shocked and repulsed to learn that his lover was actually a man, and he goes crazy in jail and eventually, while dressed as a geisha, kills himself.

I watched it on Watch Instantly, which is hard to hear; so I missed a lot of the dialogue. Cronenberg and Irons are a creepy team, and, when all is said and done, I think that although I was intrigued by this movie, I did not in fact enjoy it.