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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Skip the DVD. Read the book!, May 3, 2003
This review is from: In the Time of the Butterflies (DVD)
Adapted from the novel by Julia Alvarez about the three Mirabel sisters who were murdered by the Trujillo regime in the 1950s Dominican Republic, this 2001 made-for-TV-movie attempts to tell the story. I read the book several years ago and found it excellent. However, this film is rather thin and misses the richness of the story in several ways. The film focuses on just one character, Minerva Mirabel, and that is one of its weaknesses. There were actually three sisters who were murdered and each one of them has her own complex story that is just hinted at in the film. Also, there was one sister who survived and her story is important too. But perhaps the limits of constricting a story into a tight time frame forced this abbreviated version. Salma Hayek is the star and she does do a fine job. The wicked regime seems awful. But I just couldn't feel the emotions that were intended by the author. Of course it's a sad story; it's supposed to be. And, because of a wide TV audience, it probably reached a lot of people with its message of these heroic women who became martyrs for their cause.
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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Time for the Dictators, May 11, 2002
This review is from: In the Time of the Butterflies (DVD)
A fine, "minor" movie, with major themes. It is about resistance to a dictator, a woman's (and women's) liberation, and about the real meaning of what loss of freedom in a society means. Directed by Mariano Barrroso, the movie, spanning almost three decades, chronicles the life of a resistance movement leader, Minerva Mirabal (Salma Hayek), in the Dominican Republic, and her various confrontations with dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo (Edward James Olmos), who ruled that island nation with an iron hand from 1930 till his assassination in 1961. The movie focuses on his obsession with her and his attempts over many years to make her his mistress, bent on revenge when all his attempts prove futile. The movie implies that it was his frequent practice to visit the country, pick a young woman that filled his "eye," and then entice her to his palace for a dance. Many young women were thus impregnated and packed to Miami or other resting place afterwards. Minerva has the courage to resist, thus paying the price--her father's murder, and the imprisonment of her and her sisters. Miranda becomes the leader of an underground freedom movement under the code-name "the butterfly." Eventually, she is assassinated by his thugs, her sister and herself beaten to death with clubs. Her death is annually celebrated in Latin America, as a "violence against women" theme.
Tense, well-acted, enjoyable and horrifying, "The Times of the Butterflies" is a minor masterpiece, and an inspirational story, very much worth watching, despite the pan-and-scan format of this DVD.
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19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Deserves a Much Wider Audience, January 31, 2004
This review is from: In the Time of the Butterflies (DVD)
I appreciate the comments from other reviewers, especially those from the Dominican Republic, for whom this deeply moving story is a familiar one. I ask them to consider, however, that for many viewers outside Latin America this story of the raw courage and self-sacrifice of the Mirabal sisters in opposing the brutal Trujillo dictatorship is virtually unknown. For all the shortcomings mentioned below -- not being filmed in the Dominican Republic, plot of movie thinner than the book, etc. -- the film is an important introduction to a part of the common history of the Western Hemisphere. It tells a compelling story about events with which even those of us who try to stay abreast of developments in Latin America may nonetheless have been unaware. The portrayals of the two principal characters -- Selma Hayek as Minerva Mirabal and Edward James Olmos as Trujillo -- are of a very high standard indeed. As other reviewers confirm, the film has inspired many who had previously known little of the Dominican Republic or of the Trujillo regime to delve further into the history and politics of this period, and in particular to learn all they can about the remarkable courage of the Mirabal sisters. Like another neglected masterpiece -- Michael Verhoeven's "The White Rose" ("Die Weisse Rose"), which recounts the similarly selfless (almost reckless) courage of Hans and Sophie Scholl in leading a resistance movement against Hitler at the University of Munich in the 1940s -- this film tell a compelling story of resistance against hopeless odds and an almost incomprehensible personal courage. Despite a few minor weaknesses, "In the Time of the Butterflies" is a compelling film that greatly deserves to be seen by a wider audience (and the modest cost of this excellent DVD allows that to happen). My one reservation is that -- particularly since both Selma Hayek and Edward James Olmos are a joy to listen to in the Spanish language -- it is a pity that no Spanish language sound track was included (there are only subtitles in Spanish). Perhaps MGM will do us the favor of reissuing this important DVD in a dual-language format, with both principal actors speaking their roles in Spanish? (One would think that the Spanish-speaking market for a film with these two very popular Spanish-speaking actors would be at least as great as the English-speaking one.) In any case, it is clearly a distortion for a film like this, with a compelling theme on a neglected and important episode of recent history and with two fine actors in the principal roles, to be given only one or two stars, when the latest special-effects driven vapidity from the major studios typically receives four or five. Very strongly recommended.
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