Le battement d'ailes du papillon

The mystery here is why this delightful, small comedy has been ignored by most critics and has failed to find the audience it deserves. Simply showcasing the budding talent of Audrey Tautou should be enough to generate greater recognition from the cognoscenti.

Lacking in pretension and relying on quirky characterizations, itÕs rumination on the interconnection of human behavior manages to be both amusing and life affirming and, unlike some of itsÕ more critically acclaimed competition in the genre, such as The Taste of Others, it actually entertains.

Charming little movie about a girl on her way to work on the Metro who has her horoscope told and is informed that today she will meet the man she will fall in love with. The story then divides into a bunch of individual tales about the people on the Metro platform, with each tale in one small way moving the girl closer to meeting her intended. A lot of hilarious and unexpected belly-laughs. A movie one has to trust in as the payoff is uproariously funny. Along the way one wonders how some of the stories will affect the outcome but inevitably they do. The meaning of the title in French - "The beat of a butterfly's wings?" When a butterfly beats its' wings on one side of the Pacific it creates a tidal wave on the other side. A very funny charmer with the gorgeous Audrey Tautou who has all of the delightful screen persona of that other unforgettable Audrey.

This film is cute and spirited but not particularly deep. I was drawn into the film just to see how far this director would take this outworn theory that every event in life effects things immediately around us. There is a Law of Cause and Effect that determines what happens to an individual, but the theories of luck, fate, predestination and coincidence are not true. Therefore, I had some trouble accepting the butterfly theory. The butterfly or a man does something and something happens as a result of that action. It does not happen in the nice convenient way that this film seems to wish us to believe. In other words, our actions determine our life but do not, necessarily, influence those around us, though they may.

Audrey Tautou is as charming and delightful as she was in Amelie. The supporting cast is delightful. The film is delightful and I recommend it. Just do not get so caught up in the "message" of the film for it is fairly meaningless.

Films that crisscross different stories are no novelty (Short Cuts, Magnolia, Iossellani's "Favoris de la lune"...) but few of them have dared go as far as "Le battement d'ailes...". It would take a good deal of thinking and remembering to tell just HOW MANY stories are embedded in this wonder. And it would be pointless because, precisely, the object of the film is to show that it is not possible to separate one individual story from another.

One day in the life of so many people, characters that can be in turn charming, infuriating, lovable... And, on top of that, you get the feeling the director really loves them all (or, at any rate, most of them because some are frankly off-putting. That's life, here, just for you, on the screen.

I found this film to be an interesting study in cause and effect but little more than that. The basic plot follows the lives of a handful of people and how their actions (deliberate and otherwise) effect the lives of the others. The film's premise holds great promise but I feel it fails to deliver on its promise. Too much time is spent telling the audience about chaos theory and too little time actually showing it. As a result, I never got a true feel for any of the characters and never made a good connection with them emotionally. By the end of the movie, I had a "so what" attitude about all of them. A stronger direction in character development would have made this movie great, but as it stands it is merely so-so