Madama Butterfly Impressions

Madama Butterfly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E387c5RAhK4&feature=youtu.be

The setup of this video was standard. With intro credits and a dark harbinger in the form of the "dead" doll. I noticed the stop motion nature, and the excellent quality therein with the set, and the costume on both dolls, including the hair. One thing I did find interesting while watching the sex scene was that the male doll seemed less original (excluding the face) in that it didn't have the dynamic range of movements that the female one did. Perhaps symbolic of how he was generic or one of many, whereas she was unique and special.

Before I continue I should say that while watching the whole video, I felt very connected to the story. While I don't have a sailor boy from overseas, I was recently broken up with by a man I really loved and had the strong connection that I will refer to later in my remarks. So throughout the film I kept relating back to my own experiences with this recent 'tragedy', pulling from those emotions, which I was just starting to get over. Which is why I connect to the middle of the piece strongest and currently because he had given me hope that we could get back together, and I (like the female character will) was given hope that he would return. My story ends differently (in that I doubt he comes back) but I can feel the pain that she suffers when the male character takes the child, which I will refer to later.

The kiss when he leaves, the hat, and the leaving of the record player builds a strong connection between the two and gives her reason to expect him to come back for her. The color and lighting change in the scenes where she is waiting builds hopelessness and despair, the subtle change in the audio timbre, and the movements of the clouds add to this and express the length of time she is waiting. The wind adds to the pain she feels without him.

But then the child is born and gives her happiness again, leaving the umbilical cord adds the connection between the two. She flies when the child is there indicating her happiness, but the fall reveals her revived passion for the man and she ignores the child while she waits.

The music on the boat shows that he is having a good time without her and foreshadows the ending. When he tears the umbilical cord from the child and leaves her, he destroys her. Taking away everything she loved. Killing her happiness from him and the child. She runs away, I know the feeling as my man did the same (emotionally) to me. I dwell, live and breathe in my work, but he was an unexpected love, something I didn't ask for but got. The creation of happiness he brought is like the child, and when it is taken it destroys you. I understand and felt her desire of wanting to leave everything and vanish into impossible space. To no longer want to exist, to destroy everything in pain and pursuit of happiness at the removal of your own self. Then being forced to relive everything, although it seems she only chooses to relive the happy moments of her past, instead of dwelling on the pain brings a happier ending to her, and perhaps a lesson for myself.