Heart of ‘The Butterfly’

Jose Luis Cuerda, the 53-year-old director of “The Butterfly,” is not accustomed to Hollywood. This is, after all, his first U.S. release.

Born in Albacete, in Spain’s region of La Mancha, Cuerda doesn’t speak English. But his Spanish is laced with self-deprecating humor and congeniality. With his robust belly, snow-white hair and long beard, he describes himself as the Man of La Mancha--though he looks more like Sancho Panza than the venerable Don Quixote.

Cuerda had an unorthodox childhood--his father was a professional poker player. Although it was illegal at the time in Spain to gamble, Cuerda’s father made a decent living. When Cuerda turned 14, the family moved to a new home in Madrid--a flat his father had won in a poker game.

The family remained in Madrid, where Cuerda began writing short stories. As an adult, he found film to be a natural extension of storytelling. From 1969 to 1987, he worked as a television director and writer. But by 1988 he was making movies full time.

“The Butterfly,” which opens Friday, is based on author Manuel Rivas prize-winning collection of stories. It is a coming-of-age tale about losing innocence and the moral dilemmas people face during wartime. Told from the perspective of an 8-year-old child, the story begins as a tale of friendship between the young, frail boy and his grandfatherly schoolteacher, played by the legendary Spanish actor Fernando Fernan Gomez (who was recently hospitalized with cancer but is recuperating). With guidance from his teacher, Moncho, played by Manuel Lozano, learns about growing up, including how to woo girls, avoid fights and discover the wonders of nature in the magnificent forests of Galicia.

But the film is set in the 1930s and soon the dark shadow of fascism clouds everybody’s life. Cuerda, who owns some land in Galicia, was mindful of the particular nature of Galicia and Gallegos (people from that region). A poor region with spectacular natural surroundings, it was also one of the first regions of Spain to fall under fascism. The entire cast, with the exception of Fernan Gomez and two other actors, are natives.

To find the right boy for the part, Cuerda interviewed thousands of children in the region’s elementary schools. Eventually Cuerda found Lozano, who had no acting experience. Cuerda says he wanted to explore how fear and survival can bring out the worst in people. The Spanish Civil War has been a common theme in Spanish cinema recently; after nearly 40 years under Francisco Franco’s iron grip, Cuerda says it is important for Spaniards to come to terms with their past. Perhaps through cinema a national dialogue can begin to heal the wounds, he says.

In a recent interview, Cuerda--who directed such films as “Captain Estrada’s Widow” (1991) and “The Animated Forest” (1987)--spoke about the movie, the legacy of the Spanish Civil War and reactions to the film.

Question: How did you get into film?

Answer: Ever since we were 15-years-old, all of my friends wanted to direct movies. And so the idea was planted in my head. It’s funny but I ended up directing and a lot of them didn’t.

Q: What attracted you to Manuel Rivas’ stories?

A: It moved me tremendously when I read them. The book told me the story of the beginning of a life and how this boy learned the little things in life that are important. It is the sum of those little things that make life not just an idea or a dream. Suddenly that ends. It’s not really an end to life in the physical sense but a rupture in the moral and spiritual lives of these people (in the boy’s town). War leaves many walking dead--people who have had to denounce their friend or turn in their own brother to save their lives. That moral juncture is what left me thinking: “What would I do in that situation?” I still don’t know what I would have done. To me this merited some time of reflection.

Q: The scars of the Spanish Civil War continue, particularly for Spanish filmmakers. How does that play out in the movie?

A: In Galicia things are still not talked about. I mean if you live there and you look around you, it may be that your neighbor killed your uncle so its better not to talk about it. There are people in Spain who say, “Enough about the Civil War!” But these are the people who did things that they don’t want people to know about. Not talking about it would be to put a Band-Aid on the wound. It is important to confront it and to live with it. You cannot turn your back on it and pretend it didn’t happen.

Q: Even though in the film you are aware of something ominous lurking in the future, the ending is something of a shock.

A: A director I admire very much is Jean Renoir. He would always give his characters--even the most pathetic characters--moments of complexity. I needed to do that too with this movie’s characters and story. At one point people suggested that if I changed my ending, more people would come and see the movie. But it would not have made sense to have the boy become a hero, that he become John Wayne. I don’t make movies with comfortable situations, I make them to reflect a reality.

War is very impacting. It’s not common to have the internal and spiritual consequences of war explored in a film. Action-oriented war films usually end up as spectacles--how they jump through the air and little squirts of blood. I just think that is lamentable. I mean a dead man is a dead man. Death should be one of the most horrible things you can see.

Q: What was it like to work with Fernando Fernan Gomez?

A: This was our second time together. For my first movie with him, I offered him the role of God. So for this movie, I told him it was a step below--that he would be playing a teacher. But he told me it would be an honor to play the role and so I wrote the part for him especially. I had to give the teacher a few different quirks than the character in the novel because the character in the novel is younger. But I knew that [Fernan Gomez] had to play that role. . . . He almost moved me to tears a few times when I would suggest that he try one or two different things in his acting. He would say, ‘Yes, I will try to do that,’ as if he might not have the ability to do it differently. I mean here is an actor who can do whatever he wants in his first try.

Q: Tell me about the boy.

A: I just thought he was so natural. We basically just went through a few lines together and he was just able to recite them so well, without posing. In Spain there are not too many child actors. He was so good that he actually learned everybody else’s lines. If someone got their lines wrong he would tell them their lines and say, ‘Now get it right because I want to finish this and go out and play.’ ”

Q: I’ve read that this film captures the peculiarities of Galicia.

A: There is a phrase about Gallegos: “They don’t complain, they just leave.” There a lot of immigrants around the world from Galicia. They land in Mexico, Argentina, etc. It’s a poor region. The land is very difficult to till because of the topography. They are people who are very suspicious of outsiders, they say that nothing good ever came to them from outside ever. It’s a very conservative region too where the Catholic Church has had a lot of influence. But the church itself has had some pagan moments. Its not unusual to see priests who are married and have kids. The countryside is spectacular though. The land has so much vitality and is so green.

Q: How have Americans reacted to the film at screenings so far?

A: It has been wonderful--the reaction here has been the same as the reactions I’ve had in other countries. The audiences laugh in the same places and get emotional in the same moments in the film. Although at Sundance, I had to explain to people that when we were talking about Republicans in the movie we didn’t mean the party against the Democrats but the group against the monarchy. But I also had the head of the Sundance festival come up to me in San Sebastian and say, “I don’t know much about the Spanish Civil War but I do know McCarthyism and I do know about witch hunts and betrayals committed out of fear.” This has pleased me very much.