Butterflies

Wolgang Becker’s award-winning debut feature presents a stark, introspective portrait of suburban decay, as reflected through the impassive gaze of a taciturn adolescent loner named Andi, sole witness to the drowning of a young girl in an overgrown, abandoned local canal. The film (less than an hour long) is constructed along the simple but elegant lines of a classic short story, combining successive flashbacks to gradually reveal what exactly happened to Andi and the girl on the banks of the remote and derelict canal. Becker is able to throw quite a punch with a remarkable economy of effort, employing his minimal style to sometimes chilling effect. There’s an uncomfortable feeling of open-air claustrophobia behind the bright black and white photography, and Becker’s discriminating use of environmental sound in place of music helps create an unsettling mood of psycho-sexual tension.