Madama Butterfly

The Madama Butterfly animation was interesting to me. I haven’t seen a lot of work done in stop-motion, so I’m glad to have more exposure to it. I know that the animation process takes a while. Even to get a few seconds of animation, many frames are needed to be drawn and colored. But in stop-motion, the animator has to delicately move each part of the model to achieve their goal. And timing it with music can be even more difficult! To me, all the hard work put into this animation really shows. One example is the scene where the lady stands on the seaside as the clouds pass, and the setting turns from day to night. Not only is the lady’s hair moving, but the clouds and the sky also change. It all flows very smoothly.

Another thing I found interesting about the film was the symbolism. The most prominent one is the butterfly, which appears once at the beginning of the film, once as the man is leaving, and lastly at the end. I think it represents stages of her life. Once when her relationship has just begun, once as she has to let him go, and the last one at the end, giving it a sense of finality. However, at the end, the butterfly lands on the hair of another lady just like at the beginning, so it may also represent rebirth, as the final butterfly was also made from the protagonist’s clothing near the end.

An image from the short film