Guide questions for The Tongue of the Butterfly:
 

1. Check the links in the class web page about Galician culture. How is Galician culture represented in this film? What particular references are made to local realities, customs and traditions, myths and folk legends, or other distinctive particularities? What importance has language? How effective is the film portraying Galician cultural identity?

2. Compare the representation of the past in Belle Epoque and in The Tongue of the Butterfly.
Consider some of the following issues: What similarities/differences do you find in terms of visual style, imagery, tone? How is the idea of lost paradise represented in both films? How are the ideals of freedom, love, friendship, and fraternity represented, and how are the conflicts emanating from these ideals solved? How do the lives of the characters reflect the social tensions of the historical period? How does The Butterfly’s narrative structure and use of symbolism help to convey the meaning of historical events? Does The Butterfly deconstruct the nostalgia effect of mainstream retro-period films? And if so, how?

3. Discuss the use of animal imagery in this film. What function does it have in the film’s narrative? What emotional responses does it intend to create in the spectator? How does it help underline the main themes of the film?

4. Discuss the final sequence of the film. How do you explain the abrupt ending? What effect does it produce in the spectator? Does the theatrical setting promote the catharsis in the spectator? How do you interpret the final words of Moncho? What moral dilemma is presented to the characters and to the spectators in this ending scene?
 
 

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