La Femme papillon

An allegorical fable about puppets in search of freedom and autonomy, this stop-motion film invites the viewer into the wings of a theatre of illusions, between rigging lofts and mechanical purveyors of enchanting simulacra. A baroque mise en abyme, Virginie Bourdin’s film creates a singular world, in which the clumsy approach of a liberated audience member opposes the graceful rigidity of a heroine imprisoned on a prison-stage. Yet the ochre and golden seduction of the film is laced with an element of the uncanny, when the backstage area reveals a room full of forgotten, inanimate puppets, which ropes no longer animate and cameras no longer film…