Butterfly

Butterfly (La lengua de las mariposas, 1999) is a Spanish drama directed by José Luis Cuerda that you can watch online on iFILM. Galicia, 1936. Eight-year-old Moncho walks into school for the first time, certain something bad is coming. What he finds instead is Don Gregorio.

Fernando Fernán Gómez plays the old teacher who shows the boy how a butterfly's tongue works, why frogs sing at dusk, and what it means to think for yourself. Manuel Lozano carries every ounce of childhood awkwardness in the lead role. The screenplay draws from short stories by Manuel Rivas, and the warmth between pupil and teacher is built slowly, scene by ordinary scene. Spain's Civil War is just off-screen — something adults whisper about, not yet real to a child.

Then it arrives. The ending is brief and brutal precisely because everything before it was so unhurried. A quietly devastating film, and one of the better Spanish titles of the late nineties. Stream Butterfly (1999) online on iFILM.