Pretty Butterflies

Film - 2012

83.6K

Pretty Butterflies it's a movie with Micaela Ramazzotti, Sara Podda, Maya Mulas, Susanna Mantega, Davis Tagliaferro Full cast. Directed by Salvatore Mereu. Original title Bellas Mariposas Genre Drama.

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Review of

Emiliano Baglio

Caterina, known as Cate, is 11 years old, has a lot of brothers and sisters, a best friend Luna, a rags-to-riches father, a mother who gets by as best she can to feed everyone and lives in the run-down suburbs of Cagliari. It is she herself who tells us about her life, in the first person and often addressing the camera as if she were talking to imaginary friends, perhaps those spectators who she will drag with her into her world. But today, August 3, will be a special day for Cate because Tonio, one of her many brothers, has decided to kill Gigi, the boy she is in love with. Bellas mariposas, the fourth film by Salvatore Mereu, has many strengths and some small flaws. The first virtue is that of total identification with Cate, with her innocent and light gaze which allows her and her friend Luna to go through a reality made of degradation and squalor with the lightness of two "beautiful little butterflies" (bellas mariposas in dialect Sardinian). The world that surrounds these two girls seems to offer nothing, one of Cate's brothers already pierces himself, her sister Mandarina got pregnant at 13 and is now a prostitute, her neighbor Samantha was practically raped on the roof of the building and now he keeps quiet about the scandal by masturbating anyone who asks, including Cate's father and even when Cate and Luna go to the beach there is always some adult ready to offer them 30 euros to lick another type of ice cream. Cate, however, doesn't let anything discourage her and keeps that special light alive in her eyes and continues to dream of escaping by becoming a singer. She manages to tell us all this (and the director with her) without any complacency. You may seem absurd reading the plot but in Bellas Mariposas, despite the subject matter, it does not Read all

plot

3 August, Cagliari: a poor neighborhood. At three in the morning eleven-year-old Cate is woken by the screams of her eccentric neighbor. Cate wants to run away from that apartment, from her numerous and problematic siblings and her tyrannical father. Only Gigi, a neighbor, is worthy of her love. She does not want to end up like her sister Mandarina, who got pregnant at thirteen. Or like Samantha, the neighborhood sex siren. And today, on 3 August, Gigi’s life is in danger: Tonio, Cate’s brother, wants to kill him. Cate warns Luna, her best friend. The two of them spend the longest day of their lives between the city, the sea and a thousand adventures. But her beloved Gigi is in danger. And when everything seems lost, during the night a beautiful woman appears out of nowhere: the mysterious Aleni, a witch who apparently can see into people’s futures...